Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Nov. 7, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images
By Sharon Rosen Leib
October 25, 2024
The daughter of the owner of the Los Angeles Times wrote on social media Friday that one of the reasons her father blocked an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris for president is the Gaza war.
Nika Soon-Shiong, whose father is Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, applauded the newspaper’s decision on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“This is not a vote for Donald Trump,” she wrote. “This is a refusal to ENDORSE a candidate that is overseeing a war on children. I’m proud of the LA Times’ decision just as I am certain there is no such thing as children of darkness. There is no such thing as human animals.”
The Times’ has endorsed a Democrat for president in every general election since 2008. Its failure to endorse Harris, as its editorial board had planned, prompted the resignation of Mariel Garza, its editorial editor, and two editorial writers. It sent shock waves through Democratic circles and incensed staffers and readers who accused the newspaper’s owner of compromising the independence of the editorial board, which had drafted a Harris endorsement —Garza, said — as the logical culmination of a series of editorials on the dangers of a second Trump administration.
Trump’s campaign jumped on the news, broken by Semafor on Tuesday, sending out a statement that said it showed Harris’ “fellow Californians know she’s not up for the job.”
Vice President Harris, who was endorsed by the Times during her successful campaigns for state attorney general and the U.S. Senate, has a strong voting record of support for Israel. Though she has empathized with Palestinians suffering in the Israel-Hamas war, she has also failed to secure the endorsement of a movement that urged voters in Democratic primaries this year to vote “uncommitted” to protest the Biden administration’s support for Israel.
Nika Soon-Shiong, 31, a Stanford University graduate and doctoral student at the University of Oxford, has long advocated publicly for several causes, including Palestinian rights, and founded a group that advocates for a guaranteed income for poor Americans.
She has been scrutinized since her father bought the 144-year-old newspaper, California’s largest, and the San Diego Union Tribune for $500 million in 2018. An unflattering profile in Los Angeles Magazine criticized her “outsized influence” at the newspaper and called her “the Ivanka of the Los Angeles Times”.
“My immediate thought after reading about the Times decision was that Nika was involved,” said Paul Koretz, a Democrat and former mayor of West Hollywood. “The Times had no other reason not to endorse Harris except for the influence of people that strongly side with the Palestinians post-Oct. 7.”
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