Trump versus the Wall Street Journal
It has been a long way coming but the so-called conservative media has not been in the Trump camp for quite some time. They are not MAGA and they are criticizing the president even though they are hardly democrats. This includes the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post and also Fox News. Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its powerful owner has taken a personal turn.
In the legal filings Trump says he personally told media mogul Rupert Murdoch that the racy birthday greeting he had supposedly sent two decades earlier to Jeffrey Epstein had been faked and did not exist. Murdoch’s WSJ reported it anyway, despite Trump’s warning.
Now, Trump is asking a federal judge in Miami to compel Murdoch to answer his lawyers’ questions under oath within 15 days of the order. Trump’s legal team acknowledges that the ink is barely dry on the lawsuit, but argues that Murdoch is unlikely to testify in person whenever a trial occurs due to his advanced age.
Murdoch is 94 years old, has suffered from multiple health issues throughout his life, is believed to have suffered recent significant health scares. The Wall Street Journal has for a while been spending more time on gossip and opinions than actual news and has gone south as a trusted news outlet. They are constantly and without hesitation supporting Israel and they keep attacking Russia. The bias is unprecedented as Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza strip and Russia is trying to find a solution in Ukraine for a sustainable peace. In the same way, they are constantly attacking Trump.
While some liberal legal observers question the arguments propelling Trump’s suit, his attorneys have won settlements of $10 million to $25 million from the parent companies of X, ABC, CBS and Facebook over lawsuits. Other Trump suits against far-left media companies such as the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post’s investigative reporter Bob Woodward have been dismissed.
Trump and Murdoch have known each other for the better part of a half-century from New York City circles. The tabloid owner and the real-estate tycoon turned politician who loves the spotlight and has a habit of feeding tidbits about himself to gossip columnists to charge his name recognition.
Murdoch has been sued before and paid big money. Murdoch agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News. The voting machine company had sued after Fox’s hosts and guests repeatedly amplified claims by Trump’s allies that the company had helped rig the 2020 race for Joe Biden. Today, there is little doubt that the 2020 indeed was rigged. Since then, the relationship seems to have soured. Trump has chafed at Murdoch’s shopping for other republican candidates in 2024 and the hard-nosed reporting and rebukes published by some of his outlets. For example, WSJ editorials have sharply criticized Trump’s push for tariffs and the paper’s reporting has also been a consistent source of irritation.
The Journal has not yet reproduced the birthday greeting from Trump to Epstein that it has described as including a doodle of a naked woman accompanied by the distinctive signature of the future president. Trump’s attorneys say the newspaper does not have it because it does not exist. It does seem like low-life journalism that might have been published in the New York Post or some gossip journal, but hardly the business-oriented Wall Street Journal.
However, Trump may not, want the trial to go to the discovery phase, when Murdoch’s lawyers can obtain previously private documents and ask the president under oath about his relationship with a man now considered one of the nation’s most notorious sex offenders. With his latest lawsuit, Trump is treating Murdoch like one of the purveyors of what he has denigrated as “fake news.” Not as an independent-minded publisher. And certainly not as an important and loyal ally. The reason is that Murdoch for some reason has turned on Trump and his media empire has followed suit. The Wall Street Journal has an anti-Trump editorial group and keeps attacking Trump on a regular basis. They claim that the Trump economy stumbles and emphasizes the negatives of tariffs, lack of labor progress, high inflation and even seems to support the weak Federal Reserve. In reality, Trump is working for a fair world trade order and it is already bringing in billions in tariff revenues. This in combination with tax cuts will propel the economy into overcharge and create more domestic job opportunities. The Fed is notoriously slow as seen during Covid and does not have the urge to act. They should. Trump will continue being Trump and a fair-trade order should benefit the U.S. going forward as they have been taken advantage of for decades. The dispute with Murdoch must be personal and, in the end, the winner will likely be Trump. Gutter journalism has been ruling the U.S. for a while and it is time to clean up the media, once and for all.