“Rupert Murdoch is in class alone, he's a great guy,” Trump said of the conservative media tycoon.
A while later, when a room reporter asked Murdoch's recent editorial for the Wall Street Journal, which claimed that the president's trade proposal would lead to “the stupidest trade war in history,” Trump sang another song. I did.
“I'm going to have to talk to him,” the president said.
“I've crossed the Wall Street Journal many times,” Trump said with a grinning in the direction of Murdoch as the White House pool cameras rolled over. “I don't agree with him some things.”
The playful public rib cage of one of Trump's world's most well-known media moguls highlights the long-standing repetitive relationship between the president and publishing president, whom political and media observers said reached Hill this week. did. stage.
“Trump knows Murdoch is still very strong. He thinks he's more important than any other media. Grant Reeher, a political scientist and senior researcher at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. He said:
“For Murdoch, there's no value in getting more verbal about his personal feelings about Trump. He's always been in a stronger position to let his publications talk.”
Murdoch's widely read newspaper spoke loudly in Trump's first two weeks before his first two weeks at the White House.
The journal questioned Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s stance on the vaccine, knocking Trump for pulling security privileges from his former top aide, and pardoning the prisoner on January 6th. I warned him.
The White House forced the journal editor this week to return to knock Trump on trade and blow a note to a reporter entitled “Death, Tax, Wall Street Journal,” which screams from American manufacturing. I did.
This was an attitude reminiscent of Trump's attack on Murdoch during the 2024 campaign.
In recent weeks, other Murdoch-owned media properties have portrayed a much louder view of the president's agenda.
The New York Post cover story featured full-page images of immigrant arrests and deportation. On inauguration day there was a front page headline celebrating Trump as leading the “golden age of America.”
Trump has received almost universal praise from top hosts on Fox News, the crown jewel of Murdoch's US media empire, but the network is eager to have an exclusive interview with the president with the top administration officials.
A dedicated cable news consumer, Trump has hired several former Fox hosts to work at Key Cabinet Post, and this week will air before the Super Bowl airs on Anchor Brett Bayer on Sunday. I agreed to a wide range of interviews.
Many have slammed Fox on Lara Trump, former co-chair of the RNC and wife of the president's son Eric Trump, and made a show on the network as another indication of Cable Channel and the White House's warming relationship. It was organized.
“It was clear for a while that Fox needed Trump more than Trump needs Fox,” said a leading Republican strategist.
For over 20 years, Fox has been the highest rated cable news channel since Trump was re-elected, and has seen an increase in audiences.
Trump and Fox's relationship, in contrast to four years of tension between the two, was broken down by a massive honour and loss lawsuit that cost Murdoch's business more than $500 million.
“They don't respect you, read the deposition. Trump's ally Steve Bannon said that just a few months before Murdoch settled his defamatory lawsuit with the out-of-court voting system. In a speech at the fiery, conservative political action conference, Trump ally Steve Bannon said.
Bannon was referring to Murdoch's internal communications that showed he personally cast doubt on Trump's claims about the 2020 election.
A few months later, Murdoch's New York Post was vocal supporter of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
Some observers have said that regardless of his personal feelings about Trump, Murdoch and his representatives are likely to promote a pushback in the journal on a recent day, and that he has a view of his readers and viewers. He says he is most interested in responding.
“The University of Chicago's political science professor John Mark Hansen said:
“That's because I think Murdoch has some credibility in Trump and I don't think I'll be able to deal with some of my anger or lose anything in my readers.”
Representatives from both Murdoch and the White House declined to comment.
Since Trump's November victory, some of the biggest media, tech and business leaders have shown renewed interest in reinforcing relationships with the new president.
Trump boasted about this trend, expressing entertainment that top executives like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have worked with him and are willing to make a difference in business with his agenda in mind. I did.
But Murdoch remains in his own category, as the president said in his oval office this week.
“The newspapers will likely stop the execution of editorials. Publishing and journalism need not be involved in power politics,” media critic Ben Smith wrote in a recent column. “But if you want to be a big name, you can't make yourself so easily bully, as Murdoch has learned over the decades.”
