In an all-hands email just after dawn, Hayes—who has been the Standard’s top editor for the past two years, having taken over from Kristol when he became editor at large—predicted the Standard’s demise and partially blamed it, by implication, on the magazine’s persistent critiques of Trump.

Anschutz, a GOP megadonor, is said to have become increasingly uncomfortable with The Weekly Standard’s uncompromising accounts of the president’s flaws.

Kristol, for one, wrote recently: “Donald Trump is in many ways a bad president—bad for the country, bad for conservatism, bad for the Republican party. His sway over party and policy should be limited as much as is feasible and his dominance of our politics not extended any longer than necessary.”