Longstanding relationship between media mogul and US president is being tested amid Trump’s lawsuit over a WSJ story about his ties to Epstein
Rupert Murdoch had made up his mind. “We want to make Trump a nonperson,” he assured one of his former executives in a 2021 email, two days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Over seven decades, Murdoch has sought to charm, challenge and change prime ministers and presidents as he built one of the world’s most powerful media empires. In this particular endeavor, however, he failed.
Donald Trump, far from being made a nonperson, became the first defeated US president in 132 years to win back the White House. And from the Club World Cup final to the Oval Office, Murdoch has been seen by his side.
As the Wall Street Journal prepared to report that Trump provided a bawdy birthday letter to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein last week, the president appealed to Murdoch – chair emeritus of News Corporation, the newspaper’s owner – to kill the story, claiming it was false. The story ran.
