Stability and accuracy for the trapezoidal rule of the Newmark time integration method are analyzed when variable time step sizes are adopted. A new analytic approach to stability and accuracy analysis is also proposed for time integration methods with variable time step sizes. The trapezoidal rule with variable time step sizes has the "actual" unconditional stability which is the same as that of the method with constant time step sizes. However, the method with variable time step sizes is first-order accurate while the method with constant time step sizes is second-order accurate. accurate.