It would almost make more sense if it were about supporting Israel. The reality is that the NYT and other outlets frequently behave this way across a wide spectrum of issues, foreign and domestic. They cut Trump an utterly astonishing amount of slack, much more than they would ever grant to any other politician.

There are a couple of references below to start with, but if you do a search on Trump sanewashing you'll be overwhelmed with them.

1: https://margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/about-those-new-york...

2: https://mediabiasdetector.seas.upenn.edu/blog/sanewashing-in...