Free Press taps Adam Rubenstein — ostracized at NY Times — as its new deputy editor

The Free Press has tapped Adam Rubenstein — the conservative journalist who claimed in a viral essay that he was ostracized at the New York Times for liking Chick-fil-A sandwiches — as its new deputy editor, The Post has learned.

Sources said Rubenstein is part of the” inner circle” of Free Press co-founder and CEO Bari Weiss, who on Monday was named CBS News’ editor in chief. The Free Press was also acquired by CBS-parent Paramount Skydance for a cash and stock deal amounting to $150 million.

“Adam is part of Bari’s inner circle. She trusts him implicitly,” a person with knowledge said.

Sources expect Rubenstein will effectively run the Free Press now that Weiss will be busy steering the editorial direction of shows like “60 Minutes,” “Face The Nation” and “CBS Sunday Morning,” while also launching a new debate show.

Rubenstein, who has been acting as a contributing editor of The Free Press, has been described as a “proper Republican” whereas Weiss has been viewed as more of a centrist, the person added.

The Free Press has been critical of liberal bias at news organizations, wokism and has been a staunch supporter of Israel in the war against Hamas.

Weiss, who founded The Free Press in 2022, named Rubenstein as a contributor in 2024, and said that aside from meeting her wife, Nellie Bowles at The Times, the “second best thing was Adam Rubenstein.”

“Since the earliest days of The Free Press, Adam has been my 3 a.m. call,” she wrote in the announcement of his hire at the time.

A rep for The Free Press did not immediately comment.

Weiss and Rubenstein met at The New York Times, where the latter called out The Gray Lady for cowing to woke, leftist staffers as management mishandled the aftermath of the publication of a controversial op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on June 3, 2020.

Rubenstein, who had edited Sen. Cotton’s piece, worked with Weiss on the opinion desk until he left in 2021. Rubenstein said he was dubbed a “heretic” for his views.

In a piece he penned for the Atlantic last year, he revealed the story of a job orientation session where he was asked to name his favorite sandwich as part of an ice-breaking game with co-workers.

“The spicy chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A,” he replied, adding that at that point he “considered the ice broken.”

“The HR representative leading the orientation chided me,” Rubenstein wrote, saying the human resources rep told him: “We don’t do that here. They hate gay people.”

Other Times staffers at the orientation then “started snapping their fingers in acclamation,” he wrote.

Rubenstein tried to appease the crowd, saying: “Not the politics, the chicken.” 

“But it was too late. I sat down, ashamed,” he wrote.

Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta-based fast food chain, came under fire from liberals after its chief executive expressed opposition to gay marriage and its foundation donated millions of dollars to groups that were also publicly opposed to same-sex unions.

The “strange experience” of being a conservative at The Times came to a head after the Cotton op-ed was published and Rubenstein was identified as its editor.

Cotton, a former Army infantryman who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, called on then-President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military to quell rioting that erupted following the death of George Floyd.

Rubenstein said he received “alarming threats” once it became known that he edited the piece and that 1,500 Times employees plotted on Slack on next steps to call for a retraction, editor’s note and firings of those involved.

Rubenstein blasted the newspaper’s leadership — then executive editor Dean Baquet and publisher AG Sulzberger — for caving to pressure from staffers who claimed that publication of Cotton’s piece put black people in danger.

Under pressure from staffers, The Times’ leadership eventually pushed op-ed page editor James Bennet, who greenlit the Cotton piece, to quit.

Weiss left the Gray Lady about a month after Bennet, penning a scathing resignation letter accusing her colleagues of engaging in a “new McCarthyism” and claiming Twitter had become the paper’s “ultimate editor.”

Rubenstein resigned in December, some six months after the initial controversy,