For the second day in a row, on the pages and on the air of Rupert Murdoch’s media, reproaches for the unexpectedly weak performance of the Republicans on Election Day play a prominent role. And the consensus has not been kind to former President Donald J. Trump.
“Trump is the GOP’s biggest loser,” read the headline of a Wall Street Journal editorial on Thursday, blaming Trump for “failing in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022.”
The front page of the New York Post on Thursday was just as exuberant, if a little more tongue-in-cheek. It featured an illustration of Mr. Trump as Humpty Dumpty. “The Don (who couldn’t build the wall) failed: can all the GOP men get the party back together?” the title said.
Inside, The Post published an op-ed by conservative writer John Podhoretz, a frequent critic of the former president, who called Trump “the most serious voter opponent in modern American history.”
Fox News devoted all day Wednesday to commentators accusing Trump of ruining the entire party, and the criticism continued into prime time. Laura Ingram, who was one of the former president’s biggest supporters in the conservative media during her four years in office, gave him what seemed to be a blow.
“The populist movement is based on ideas,” Ingram said. “This is not about one person. If voters decide that you are putting your ego or your own grievances ahead of what is good for the country, they will look elsewhere, period.”
His colleague Tucker Carlson was more lenient in his assessment of the election, saying Trump has always been a “mixed blessing” for Republicans. “In this case, this is definitely not the only reason,” Carlson added.
The two Murdochs who run the Fox Corporation and its newspaper business, Murdoch and his son Lachlan, are said to have been angry with Trump lately and expressed concern that he will hurt the Republican Party’s chances of a big win on Tuesday. Her discomfort with him, according to people who have spoken to both Murdochs, stems from his refusal to recognize the results of the 2020 election.
During the spring and summer, Trump had little to no presence online, at one point calling almost every night. For more than 100 days, Fox News did not air a single interview with him.
This is not the first time Murdoch’s media has criticized the former president. Following the revelations of the committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill assault, The Journal and The Post published scathing editorials condemning their inaction that day.
Of course, the pendulum can always swing back, as it has done over and over again in Rupert Murdoch’s complicated long relationship with Trump. After drawing the ire of the former president and his supporters and plummeting in ratings, Fox News followed up with its election night prediction that Trump would lose Arizona in 2020, pushing some of his false allegations of widespread electoral fraud. The network and its parent company are now facing a $1.6 billion libel suit from Dominion Voting Systems over these erroneous reports.
Trump appeared to be watching as guests and Fox hosts blamed him for Tuesday’s disappointing results. On Thursday, he lashed out at his social media platform Truth Social, writing: “For me, Fox News has always been out, even in 2015-2016 when I started ‘my journey.’ He added: “But now they really are gone. This is a great opportunity for another media outlet to get rich and benefit America.”
