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EXCLUSIVE: The Onion calls out ‘cowardice’ of Congress in full-page NYT ad
The ad features a scathing editorial, a physical copy of which was sent to all House and Senate members.
Marisa Kabas
June 22, 2025
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In timing that’s almost too absurd to be real, The Onion has a full page ad in Sunday’s New York Times print edition featuring part of an editorial titled, “Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice.” As the world wakes up to the news of the US bombing Iran, NYT subscribers perusing the news section will find this ad from the renowned satirical publication, meant to highlight the utter fecklessness of this country’s lawmakers.
The NYT ad
The ad features a portion of a longer editorial that appears in The Onion’s newest print edition, copies of which are waiting in the mailboxes of every single member of Congress when they return from their current recess on Monday. Also waiting for them is a copy of a letter from Bryce P. Tetraeder, the fake CEO of Global Tetrahedron, the real parent company of The Onion, explaining the significance of the Editorial Board’s stance.
“We teeter on the brink of collapse into an authoritarian state,” the editorial reads. “That is why, today, The Onion calls upon our lawmakers to sit back and do absolutely nothing.”
It continues: “Now is not the time for bravery or valor! This is the time for protecting your own hide and lining your pocket. Now is not the time for listening to your idiotic constituents drone on about what’s happening to their precious democracy. This is the time for getting down on all fours and groveling.”
The latest issue will be landing in The Onion subscribers’ mailboxes next month and will feature the entire editorial, the full text of which was shared exclusively with The Handbasket. Here’s an excerpt:
In our nation’s darkest moments, the public often looks to Congress for profiles in meekness. We search for men and women much like yourselves, emotional weaklings who are afraid to meet their own glance in the mirror, insignificant do-nothings who quake in their boots at the mention of the slightest exertion. Many of you have already distinguished yourselves as such individuals. To them, our country’s oligarchs can only offer their boundless thanks.
Take solace knowing you are not alone in this endeavor. Over the grand expanse of American history, there have been countless lawmakers who managed to summon up their complete lack of backbone and do the easy thing. Think of the members of Congress who turned a blind eye to Japanese American internment, McCarthyism, or the horrors of the Holocaust, all because doing something seemed a little too hard, a little too inconvenient. These men should be your inspiration. Never forget: You stand on the shoulders of spineless giants.
Other headlines in the special issue include ,”Congress Passes Blank Bill For Trump To Write Whatever Law He Wants,” and “Think Tank Called ‘The Himmler Institute’ Assures Nation This All Legal.”
When The Onion staff cooked up this idea, there were already an embarrassing number of examples to illustrate lawmakers’ impotence. But they could have never predicted the ad would be published in the immediate wake of the US potentially entering a new war in the Middle East—one with zero oversight from Congress.
“The Onion is known for its oracular ability to predict the next great American horror, but the timing on this might be the most prescient bit of The Onion’s reporting yet,” CEO Ben Collins told The Handbasket on Saturday night. “As the president drags this country headlong into yet another war, which will certainly bring about no adverse consequences, I am proud to reiterate The Onion’s call for Congress to sit back and just let this all happen to us.”
At many points since The Onion’s inception, and particularly of late, it’s been difficult to tell a real news headline from one of their fake ones. In May, Rolling Stone broke the story that Diddy’s team was working on getting Trump to pardon him for his sex trafficking and racketeering charges. In the lede of the story, however, the magazine acknowledged they weren’t truly first.
“Earlier this week, The Onion ran a piece headlined ‘Sean Combs Asks for Quick Trial So He Can Get to Part Where Trump Pardons Him,’” the Rolling Stone story said. “It may be on to something.”
But The Onion is no stranger to getting it right before the actual news has time to catch up. “In 2003, we were one of the few publications to stand up against the Iraq war and report on it, and then hit on how so much stuff felt fabricated, how there's this craven desire to invade Iraq,” Editor-in-Chief Chad Nackers told The Handbasket. “That was not what the mainstream media was doing.”
Nackers, who’s been at the publication since 1997, recalled that in the lead up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, CNN was “drooling” over the spectacle and “couldn't wait to show the missiles flying in.” The Onion, on the other hand, featured headlines like “This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t” and “New Bomb Capable Of Creating 1,500 New Terrorists In Single Blast.”
Now with CNN assuming its position as warmongering infotainment, The Onion once again has an opportunity to report the truth via satire with independence—and without the influence of corporate overlords. And Nackers sees this bold truth-telling as the publication’s commitment to democracy.
“As much as The Onion can be very critical of America—and rightly so—that is what should be embraced, right?” Nackers said. “That is an amazing freedom, to be able to be critical of when your country does something wrong and try to course correct. I think for The Onion writers, that's where their patriotism lies.”
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