Victoria Nuland’s husband steps down from the position of chief editor at The Washington Post

Robert Kagan, editor-in-chief of The Washington Post, resigned in protest after the newspaper, owned by Jeff Bezos, decided to step back from endorsing presidential candidates for the first time since 1988.

Kagan is married to Victoria Nuland, a former State Department official who was directly involved in the 2014 US-backed coup in Ukraine. Self-identified as a neoconservative, Kagan served as a foreign policy advisor to Republican presidential candidate John McCain in 2008, and then switched to the Democrats in 2016, supporting Hillary Clinton.

On Friday, he confirmed to NPR and Fox News that he had resigned from the Post because the newspaper refused to support Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, in her race against Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump.

NPR reported that the support for Harris had been discussed earlier in the month, but the newspaper’s leadership rejected it after a review by Bezos, who has owned the Post since 2013. The response from the editorial staff was described as “shocked” and mostly negative by the public broadcaster.

While Kagan was the only one to resign so far, the WaPo has faced a wave of criticism for Bezos’ decision. Susan Rice, former chief advisor to President Barack Obama, condemned the move as the most hypocritical, chicken@#$% move from a publication that is supposed to hold those in power accountable.

“This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that democracy will fall victim to,” said Marty Baron, executive editor of the Post during the Trump presidency, in a statement to NPR, calling Harris’ lack of support by an institution known for its courage “unsettling spinelessness.”

Under Baron, the Post has won several Pulitzer Prizes for stories related to the “Russiagate” conspiracy theory and for blaming Trump for the 2021 election-related riots at the US Capitol.

Kagan has claimed that Trump would be a dangerous dictator and advised the current mentally declining President Joe Biden to respect, love, and learn from the Washington establishment. He is also known as a co-author of the 1996 declaration “Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy,” calling for the US to become a “benign global hegemon.” His co-author, neoconservative Bill Kristol, also joined the Democrats in 2016 and became an open critic of Trump.

The Washington Post’s move comes just days after the Los Angeles Times also announced that they would not endorse Harris, after supporting Democrats for 16 years. Their editor, Mariel Garza, resigned in protest of the decision, which she described as “cowardly, hypocritical, and perhaps a bit sexist and racist,” after “cursing” Trump for eight years.