An open letter circulating online in which Katie Couric criticizes U.S. President Donald Trump a week before the 2026 midterm elections is authentic.
It’s true that on Oct. 27, Couric published an article under her own byline criticizing Trump. The veteran journalist didn’t label it an “open letter” but it appeared to serve that purpose. She made the piece available as a paid, members-only story on her Substack blog. However …
… Some social media users shared the article with dozens of changes, including apparent omissions, that weren’t reflected in Couric’s published piece as of this writing. For example, Couric’s article didn’t call Trump’s rhetoric “disgusting.” The full article on her blog featured more paragraphs, sourcing with links and other details that were missing from the social media versions.
In late October, people shared a claim alleging journalist Katie Couric wrote an open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump in which she called his rhetoric “disgusting.”
According to social media posts, Couric penned the piece to criticize Trump on a range of issues including immigration policy, “weaponization of the Justice Department,” corruption and tariffs. She also purportedly wrote that Trump started the war in Iran contrary to his own campaign promise of no new wars and chided him over his “love affair” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
While it’s true that Couric wrote and published a members-only piece excoriating Trump on her Substack blog (“How Do I Oppose Thee? Let Me Count the Ways”), it’s false that a version of the letter rapidly spreading on the internet is identical to what Couric actually wrote. Therefore, we’ve rated this claim a mixture of true and false elements.
As the prime example, on Oct. 28, a Facebook user posted (archived) some text allegedly sourced from Couric’s piece. The user wrote an introduction reading, “Most people outside of MAGA consider Katie Couric a thoughtful and fair journalist. Here’s her letter to President Trump that lists the reasons she opposes him. Please share.”
Snopes readers searched our website using various queries, for example “Katie Couric letter,” “Katie Couric letter to Trump” and “Did Katie Couric write a letter to Trump.” A search also located a similar X post (archived).
Couric truly published a paid, members-only article that appeared to double as an open letter to Trump, titled “How Do I Oppose Thee? Let Me Count the Ways,” on her Substack blog. She labeled the article as “A few things to note before you vote (OK, maybe more than a few).”
However, the version of Couric’s article circulating on social media contained dozens of changes, including apparent omissions, that distinguish it from the original. As one of many examples, Couric’s piece did not call Trump’s rhetoric “disgusting.” The social media version also stripped out all evidential links sourcing Couric’s many claims and omitted some of the paragraphs featured in her original text. Therefore, we rated the claim that Couric wrote the piece a mixture of true and false information.
The above-mentioned Facebook user published his post on Wednesday and only later updated it to add a link to Couric’s Substack article.
About eight hours before that user shared the post, someone captured an archived version of the beginning of Couric’s article. At that point in time, the word “disgusting” did not appear, indicating the Facebook user may have taken some liberties editing Couric’s piece for social media.
The general drift of Couric’s criticism remained mostly the same in the Facebook post. Even so, we make note of the fact the latter was worded differently and was inauthentic.
We contacted a representative for Couric to request comment and to ask if Couric changed her article after its initial publication. We haven’t yet located evidence suggesting Couric updated her article without making note of the changes. We also sent a message to the Facebook user to ask if he changed words and omitted parts of Couric’s text for his post, and will update this article if we receive any further information.
Regarding open letters to Trump, we previously investigated whether musician Tommy Lee wrote an open letter to Trump calling him a “f***ing lunatic.”
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