An increasingly sour relationship between former President Trump, Fox News and the rest of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire that has been building for months has come to a head in the weeks following the midterm elections.
It is a rift that is being watched closely in political and media circles given the power of Fox News and other media entities owned by Murdoch in potentially shaping the race for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.
Trump has already mounted a new run for the presidency, but many of Murdoch’s press outlets are either outright criticizing Trump or flirting with other political leaders.
And that could hurt Trump’s new bid for the White House, which is already off to a stumbling start amid criticism of him from other Republicans.
“Trump’s superpower is getting all the coverage. That’s not happening anymore. Fox is not covering him 24 hours a day,” Daniel Cassino, a media expert who wrote a 2016 book about Fox’s influence over American politics, told The Hill earlier this year. “So, it seems that is leading to frustration that he’s not dominating Fox the way he did before.”
Trump could typically count on several leading hosts at Fox News, and columnists at the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, all owned by Murdoch, during his presidency for supportive or at least sympathetic coverage of his administration and regular attacks on his political enemies.
But as his first term drew to a close, Trump grew increasingly vocal about his frustrations with Murdoch.
Things also came to a head on election night 2020 when Fox was the first network to call Arizona for Joe Biden, a decision that infuriated Trump and that led to an effort by officials with his campaign to get Fox to reverse its call.
After Trump refused to concede, Murdoch reportedly reached a breaking point with Trump, who complained to the media mogul directly about the Arizona call.
Eventually, Murdoch came to distance himself from Trump in public.
“It is crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in that debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past,” Murdoch said in remarks at an annual meeting of News Corp. stockholders days after the election. “The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future.”
Two years later, media and political observers note the tone on Trump from outlets like the Journal and Post has shifted in a big way.
Murdoch’s outlets in recent months have sent the message that they “see Trump as more of an anchor than a life preserver when it comes to the kind of politics they’d like to see,” said Tobe Berkovitz, associate professor of advertising emeritus at Boston University.
“They all see that Trump is no longer the lunch bucket for them when it comes to ratings and readership,” Berkovitz said. “Ironically, MSNBC, CNN and some of the mainstream media are riding the Trump pony for all its worth.”
Fox remains the top-rated network on cable, with one recent study showing it is watched by a larger portion of Democrats and independents than other networks, a byproduct of its outsized audience share.
“There’s a good chance of Fox News maintaining, regardless of whatever its direct relationship with Trump, the view that its core consumer is one that wants to hear good things about Republicans and bad things about Democrats,” said Josh Pasek, associate professor of communications and media at the University of Michigan. “If you look at what’s on Fox News, it’s a lot of the same stuff that was on Fox News before Trump.”
Murdoch has made other moves telegraphing an increasingly frosty view of the former president.
In September of last year, he hired the bombastic British television host Piers Morgan, who has publicly sparred with the former president, to host a show on U.K.-based TalkTV and write regular columns for the Post.
Fox News also stopped airing Trump rallies and speeches in full after his presidency came to an end. One exception came in November when the former president held an event at Mar-a-Lago announcing a bid for the White House in 2024.
Guess what Fox,Murdoch,Hannity,….. You were what was on my TV each and every day,but,since Hannity,my Number One man showed his true COWARDLY COLORS at the Dominion trial,Fox,has been ELIMINATED from our HOUSEHOLD for good this time. Everyone else should follow suit. Show these people what the word LOYALTY and INTEGRITY really mean!! Send their ratings to HELL!!!
Hannity has not been on his TV Show for over a Week now. Why & what is going on? He sure did lose alot of followers. I hope the Coward is gone, as he deserves a Failed Show. OAN is the News here, no more low fox.
Screw Fox News and their liberal leaning owners! I don’t really watch them much any more because of their liberal entitled children that are running daddy’s company are running it into the ground. Sad but true.
Dem/Lefties are BEHIND the ‘appeal’ to ‘let go of the past and move forward’ when it comes to Trump still wanting the 2020 Election rigging by Dems to be ‘investigated’ – because IT NEVER HAS BEEN! not with a corrupt Dem/Lefty Congress in Power!!! and NOW we know there are fake Repubs in lockstep with the the corruption, and don’t WANT to be ‘drained’ with all the other ‘swamp’ creatures’ Trump STILL WANTS to expose and incriminate for their Corruption that is Destroying America! But AS LONG AS 2020 is never allowed to be ‘looked at’, there is NO HOPE of EVER getting Dem Election Fraud reined in, exposed, and punished and defeated! for the American Public. And if THAT NEVER happens, say goodbye to any hope that America will survive what Dems have planned. It is a RUSE on the Public to say ‘we have to move on’. NO!!! We need to get to the BOTTOM of 2020! if we want to climb out of this hole the Dems have created, and put us in! This is NOT something that can be just ‘swept under the carpet’. It’s going to keep coming back, just like it just DID in 2022, until the Dem snake is cut open to reveal what’s inside! We HAVE to KNOW! WWII wasn’t OVER until the Nuremburg Trials were OVER – that took several YEARS. We’ve already wasted 2 yrs!!! This will NEVER just GO AWAY. THIS has to be UNDONE! Totally! And it CAN’T WAIT. This is NOT about Trump, God bless him AND his family who ‘took it for us’ so bravely, and so dignified! But there were VERY FEW around Trump at the time who were not ‘too scared’ to STAND and be Counted, but RAN with their tails between their legs! We can pretend it’s ‘over’, but we all KNOW it’s NOT. We are still watching as Kari gets the Trump treatment!!! and so many others! We HAVE the PROOF. But it has NEVER YET seen the Light of Day in any Courtroom, because Justices have been threatened and intimidated to ‘not get involved’. But a day of reckoning is coming, and may be here, when everyone will be called upon to STAND for our FREEDOMS and LIBERTIES, and we can’t just hide anymore, hoping and praying that someone ELSE will Stand, when we won’t. The time is now. The time to STAND with our Heroes is NOW. Fox is only interested in ‘making $$$’, not producing Truth. We see what they’re doing to Elon for wanting just to give the People BACK their Right to Free Speech – and how the Snake is opposing him for just wanting that little nugget. How much will we continue to put up with before we join in and support our Heroes who are STANDING UP to injustice and tyranny. WE will get the brunt of the Tyranny if we don’t STAND now. We KNOW who the ‘good guys’ ARE now. We NEED TO STAND WITH THEM, or just be like France and surrender to those who HATE us. We’re NOT talking ‘taking up arms’. We’re just talking STAND UP by using your Voice and your Time to spell out your Support and your Love of Justice and Righteousness, and your HATE for Evil, Wickedness and Injustice and Wrongs being done in the highest institutions of our Country! Use your Voice. Let it be heard. Speak up. Don’t give up. Don’t surrender, and above all, don’t JOIN them in their HATRED of Good. They’re putting people in Prison now just for ‘thinking’ things THEY don’t like!!! ARE you AWARE of THAT? They just killed off millions of People by denying them the one cheap medicine that would have warded off the Virus that killed them – but they wouldn’t LET THEM have it! and then they wouldn’t let YOU know what they were doing! and had done. How much MORE will we put up with before we REALIZE that the Time is NOW to Act – not LATER when we WILL have to FIGHT for our very LIVES! The Time is NOW. not Later. NOW. And, first things first, we HAVE to UNDO what happened in 2020, whatever that takes. And we HAVE to expose the works of the Left that are trying to subjectify us to evil, tyrantial purposes to weaken us, and make us their slaves. Trump was a GREAT President! And he had so much MORE he wanted to accomplish for us – which is WHY the Left HATES HIM, and WANTS to destroy him SO MUCH. And WE have the POWER to stop them! But we have to act NOW. We have to get behind GOOD Leaders who have OUR BEST INTERESTS in mind, not just ‘their own interests’. And we NEED a person at the helm who TRULY understands what has happened, and who TRULY will do his utmost to set this Ship aright again! And that man is still Trump, who is more invested than anyone else in obtaining right and true outcomes that will truly benefit American interests for this Constitutional Republic that Dems hate so much, and are working so hard to destroy!!! Save yourself! Save America! Save our Elections! Do you know ANYONE who has proven themselves to be and do what we NEED, MORE than Trump? no. you don’t – because no one else ever HAS proven themselves like he has! I don’t think ANYONE in America’s past has been as sacrificial as Trump has for this Nation. And he’s willing to do it again! That says a LOT from someone who has been through sooo much for US already, that he’s WILLING to take on the Left AGAIN, for US – because we KNOW he’s NOT doing it for himself or Melania, who have everything they could ever want or need, and don’t need the anguish of another fight with a Dem-controlled everything! like no other President has EVER been called on to rally together! Please DON’T join with those who are too willing to ‘call it quits’ and just ‘give in’ to what Dems want – like our RINOs (who I think hate us MORE than Dems) (and yes, probably hate US MORE than Dems – thinking of ‘us’ as their worst enemy). But we AREN’T the Enemy. They are. And they have to be defeated and their voices drowned out. We can do this. We can. We must! We have no choice if we want to survive and not be conquered by their zeal for evil to overcome. Warring against what happened in 2020 is NOT about Trump. It’s about our Constitutional Rights and Freedoms, and our blest sanctity of being able to elect the persons WE want over us, and NOT someone whose supposed ‘election’ is just ‘fixed’ and we have NO POWER to correct that malfeasance when it occurs. Do we CARE or don’t we? If we just let this ‘go’, and don’t ‘fight’ what the Left has done to us in the last two elections, then we’re just calling quits when they tell us ‘we need to move on’. Really? That would be like the guys on Omaha Beach saying, ‘let’s just go get back on the ships’ when they saw the carnage happening in front of them! That was in June 1944. And in Feb. of 1945, they were STILL LOSING to Germany – yet they fought ON to Victory!!! just a few months later. It’s up to US. But we shouldn’t just ‘give up’ and say ‘it doesn’t matter anymore’. We STILL HAVE some 800+ men and women in Prisons across this country, whose only charged ‘crime’ was ‘trespassing’, and they’ve been waiting now almost 2 yrs. to ever see a Courtroom, or even have an Atty. to represent them! We should CARE about THEM! We now KNOW there were FBI and CIA agents in that crowd on J-6 TRYING to create mayhem and using blowhorns to ‘create’ agitation, and PUSHING people INTO the Capitol while the ‘Capitol Police’ were literally ushering them in with gestures and smiles – to TRAP THEM inside!!! The ones doing the ‘acting out’ were just that – actors, CIA, FBI, and paid Antifa. Did they LOOK like any ‘Trump Supporters’ you had ever met??? no. That’s because THEY WEREN’T. To NOT ‘go back’ and ‘investigate’ and dig into all the atrocities committed in 2020 and on J-6, would be a Travesty to our Historical Record. It would be just like how it’s STILL kept a secret about how JFK was killed, now 60 yrs. later! And why? Because they don’t want the backlash when people find OUT that it was done by our own Govt.!!! as were the other executions in 1968! Aren’t we TIRED of being told ‘the People can’t know the facts’. Aren’t YOU tired of being lied to by our Medical Community hiding the Truth about Covid, and Covid vaccines that kill more than help, and readily available medicines (like D-3 and Zinc, Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine) that WOULD HAVE saved lives, but we weren’t allowed to get them… by our Medical Community being PAID by our Govt. to ‘play along’, while people died because of them!!! Aren’t you tired of them telling YOU that your children have to be vaxxed, when they KNOW the Vaxxes are poisons that overpower the immune systems of our young, AND cause all kinds of horrid ‘side effects’, like clotting and damaging the heart muscles??? Aren’t you TIRED YET of being a 5th class citizen, while illegals are staying in 5-star hotels, and given free air, train and bus rides to ‘wherever they want to go’, complete with $$$ and who knows what else??? That’s the Left. We have to stop them. There’s only 1 Man that’s EVER DONE IT BEFORE – and THAT would be Donald Trump! our President. Do you realize that he STOPPED (pretty much) Illegal immigration into the U.S. FOR THE FIRST TIME, when we had been trying to do that since the 1950’s??? And he WANTED to tackle SO MUCH MORE, but the Left (using Fauci) had been busy paying China to ‘create’ a ‘new Virus’ to infect the U.S. with (that then went global by mistake) in order to ‘hurt Trump’ for the 2020 re-election? but the People LOVED Trump for all he DID TO HELP US with Covid!!! So then, Dems started ‘changing election laws’ in their states, and working on more Fraud tactics they could use – and DID use. And THEN ALSO heavily invested in a new Dominion Election Software – that clinched the election for THEM!!! And if we DON’T STOP DEM/Lefties, they will keep on until EVERY STATE is like NY, CA, OR, WA, CT, MD, and others – never to be a 2-party state again!!! because THEY control all elections! is that what you WANT??? We have to stop it now! It’s NOT the time to ‘move on’ – NOT until we first STOP THEM IN THEIR TRACKS FIRST. And the 2020 Election is where it ALL can be unraveled – but this opportunity will be LOST if we let Dems keep s- s – t – r – e – t – c – h – i – n – g -g it out. A LOT happened in 2020. We need to know WHAT they did, and HOW they did it to us. We HAVE to KNOW. And there REALLY IS only ONE MAN who CARES ENOUGH about it to do what NEEDs to be DONE! DON’T swallow the Left’s little blue pill that ‘that’s old news…’, or ‘that’s been dealt with’, or ‘that’s all just conspiracy theory lies…’ None of that is true. Look at how LONG it’s taken our Media to FINALLY admit that ‘it was a mistake to hide the Hunter Biden laptop story’. Look how long! And the ONLY reason it’s FINALLY coming out, is because that’s the LEAST of Biden’s corruption! that most people think ‘doesn’t matter anymore’, but it holds the ANSWERS to sooooo much of what is going on TODAY at Biden’s feet because he has been ‘bought’ by the Chinese who he used his own son to ‘bargain’ with ‘his position’ in our Govt. – it’s called Bribery, much like when persons pay off a high official to procure ‘favors’ for themselves that then ‘backfires’ when they keep asking for MORE, like the Mob, or like the Mexican Drug and Human Trafficking Cartels do… it never ends. And THAT is what we believe is happening with the many ‘deals’ our Govt. is making with our worst enemies… because of the Biden Family corruption… it never ends. WE HAVE TO STOP IT!!! Will you help??? Or will you just hope somebody else will do something about it. The Time is NOW.