Between Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, the divorce is consummated

Does Rupert Murdoch want the skin of Donald Trump? The case could seem heard. Since the poor result of the Republicans in the midterm elections in early November – and even more so of the candidates supported by the former president – ​​the attacks of the media belonging to the 91-year-old billionaire have rained down on the former tenant of the White House.

On the front line, the New York Post, who nevertheless accompanied the latter in his media and political rise. The day after the announcement of his candidacy for the presidency of 2024, in mid-November, only a tiny call of “a” signals the event, sent further in a few sharp lines. At Fox News, the favorite channel of the conservatives created by Murdoch and long main megaphone of Donald Trump, we did not even bother to broadcast the entire speech.

Earlier, the former head of state had already had the unpleasant surprise of seeing himself caricatured on the cover of the Post, an editorialist asserting that“It’s time for Trump to quit politics.” The day before, the tabloid presented the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, triumphantly re-elected, as “DeFuture”.

Another ship of the billionaire, the wall street journal (WSJ) had also called Donald Trump a “biggest loser of the Republican Party”. Enough to infuriate the former president, who let loose on his network, Truth Social, repainting his potential rival in “Ron-la-morale” and criticizing a New York Post “not as great as before”. As for Fox News, he believed that she was “truly lost”.

“Trump is now spoiled ‘commodity’ because of January 6 and the lawsuits against him. Robert Shapiro, professor at Columbia University

This episode is not without precedent. On the evening of the 2020 presidential election, Fox News was the first to attribute victory to Joe Biden in the ultra-tight battle for Arizona, provoking the ire of Donald Trump.

Since then, the links have been slowly disintegrating. This summer, several editorials from Post and WSJ criticized a man “prisoner of his own ego”, unable to accept defeat and whose “overwhelming silence” since his supporters’ assault on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021, makes him “unworthy” to be at the head of the country again.

“Trump is now spoiled ‘commodity’ because of January 6th and the lawsuits against him, analyzes Robert Shapiro, professor at Columbia University. But Murdoch wants to support a winner. » This Australian by birth, who became an American citizen in 1985, readily sees himself as a kingmaker. He is as powerful as he is essential, and his media empire extends to Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Very early, he had opened the pages of the New York Post to Donald Trump, met in the 1970s and who sells paper.

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