New York Times Columnist Blames Trump for Campus Rape That Happened Under Biden

There’s lazy journalism, and then there’s whatever Michelle Cottle just served up on national television. The New York Times columnist managed to pin an alleged gang rape at Cornell University on President Trump, conveniently ignoring one glaring detail: the assault happened in 2024 when Joe Biden was sitting in the Oval Office.

Let that sink in for a moment. We’re talking about a horrific alleged crime, seven men accused of gang-raping a woman, an incident that demands serious examination of campus culture and institutional failures. And somehow, Cottle twists herself into a pretzel to make it about Trump’s “thuggish and swaggering” influence on American culture.

You know what? This isn’t just sloppy thinking. It’s intellectually dishonest, and it does a disservice to the victim at the center of this case. The woman identified as Jane Doe in court records deserves better than being turned into a political talking point. She deserves justice, not hot takes designed to rack up clicks and nods from the Upper West Side crowd.

Cottle went on ABC News and declared that Trump created some kind of cultural miasma where disrespecting women became cool. “We can go to the president for this one,” she said with what I can only assume was a straight face. The fundamental problem here isn’t just the timeline mixup, though that’s embarrassing enough for a columnist at what’s supposed to be America’s paper of record. It’s the underlying assumption that everything bad in America flows from one man, regardless of who’s actually in charge when it happens.

This is Trump Derangement Syndrome in its purest form. It’s gotten so bad that otherwise intelligent people can’t help themselves. They see Trump lurking behind every terrible thing that happens in this country, like he’s some kind of omnipresent boogeyman controlling the thoughts and actions of college students he’s never met.

The backlash was swift and deserved. Scott Jennings nailed it when he compared this to medieval witch trial logic. Joe Concha asked the obvious question that apparently never occurred to the Times editorial team before they let Cottle go on air. Even people who aren’t particularly conservative could see through this nonsense.

Here’s what makes this particularly galling. Campus sexual assault is a real problem that deserves serious analysis. Fraternities have had issues with assault and rape culture for decades, long before Trump descended that golden escalator. These problems existed under Obama, under Bush, under Clinton. They’re rooted in toxic masculinity, alcohol abuse, institutional cover-ups, and a failure to hold perpetrators accountable. None of that has anything to do with who’s president at any given moment.

But addressing those root causes requires actual work. It means examining uncomfortable truths about how universities handle these cases, how Greek life operates with minimal oversight, how young men are socialized around sex and consent. That’s hard. What’s easy is pointing at Trump and saying “that guy right there, he’s the problem.”

The seven men accused in this case have denied wrongdoing. Some claim the encounter was consensual; others say they weren’t involved at all. No criminal charges have been filed yet, though New York Attorney General Letitia James is now investigating. And yes, there’s bitter irony in James taking this case given her history with Trump. The president called her corrupt when asked about it, which probably wasn’t the most diplomatic response but isn’t exactly shocking given their past.

What bothers me most is how this kind of commentary poisons the well for everyone. When journalists like Cottle make everything about Trump, they make it impossible to have honest conversations about real problems. Conservatives tune out because they know it’s just another episode of Orange Man Bad Theater. Moderates roll their eyes. And the actual issues get lost in the noise.

Cornell’s president said the university “must do better” on handling sexual assault allegations. That’s almost certainly true. Most universities could stand to do better. But doing better requires looking honestly at what’s broken in campus culture, not scapegoating whoever happens to be the political villain of the moment.

The Times used to be better than this. There was a time when their columnists tried to grapple with complex social problems instead of reducing everything to crude political point-scoring. Maybe that’s nostalgia talking, but I don’t think so. This isn’t analysis. It’s tribal signaling dressed up in newspaper clothes.

Seven men stand accused of a brutal crime. A woman’s life has been forever altered. Cornell faces yet another reckoning with its institutional failures. None of that has a thing to do with Donald Trump, no matter how much Michelle Cottle wants it to.