Trump-Murdoch battle tests power of conservative titans

President Trump’s battle with The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch is being closely watched as a test of the power dynamic between two of the most influential figures on the right over the last several decades. 

Trump is suing the Journal over a story it published earlier this month about a birthday letter Trump is alleged to have sent to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein decades ago. The letter included a drawing by Trump, the Journal reported, of the outline of a naked woman.

The president says neither the drawing nor the letter is his and has denied any connection to Epstein. He suggested this week that Murdoch, who owns a sprawling media empire including the Journal, the New York Post and Fox News, will be eager to settle his defamation suit seeking upward of $20 billion.

“They would like us to drop it; they want to settle it,” he told reporters Tuesday while traveling on Air Force One.

Whatever happens between the Journal, Murdoch and Trump will mark a key moment in the president’s war on the press, which has seen him win multiple settlements from leading media companies in recent months — and led to fears within the press.

It may also serve as a turning point in the Trump-Murdoch relationship.

Since Trump filed his lawsuit against the Journal, coverage of the case has been virtually nonexistent on Fox, and the Journal itself declined to comment after the White House banned its reporters from a recent trip the president took to Scotland over its Epstein stories.

Trump’s influence over viewers of Fox News, the crown jewel of Murdoch’s media empire, has been an issue in the past.

Fox was sued by Dominion Voting Systems after the 2020 election for promoting false allegations about the company’s software made by Trump and his allies. Documents released in litigation showed people within Fox were worried about how coverage critical of the president, including the network's calling Arizona for former President Biden in 2020 election coverage, was sitting with Fox viewers.

Fox settled the suit for $787 million in 2023.

At the same time, some observers see Murdoch as a more powerful media figure than many of the other people Trump has taken on with recent litigation.

“Trump is really risking biting off more than he can chew with this one,” one national Republican political operative told The Hill on Wednesday. “Rupert Murdoch is in a different weight class than some of these other media execs Trump has had success against recently.”

While most observers agree neither Trump nor Murdoch is interested in a long and drawn-out fight in court, both men have shown no sign of caving to the other’s threats or criticism. 

Murdoch’s Journal has routinely assailed Trump during the first six months of his presidency on its opinion pages, and its newsroom has published more reporting on Trump and the Epstein files in the days since the president’s suit was submitted.

Trump has needled Murdoch on social media in recent days and expressed glee at the prospect of the 94-year-old sitting for depositions with his lawyers. 

Trump's legal team on Monday asked a judge to order Murdoch to offer testimony in a matter of days, citing his age and reported health complications. 

In their filing, Trump’s lawyers alleged when the president appealed directly to Murdoch to stop publication of the Journal’s Epstein story, the media mogul told him he’d “take care of it.”

“I would have assumed Rupert controls it, maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t,” Trump said during the same press conference on Air Force One, taking a shot at Murdoch’s competence.

Trump’s suit against Murdoch came just days after Paramount, another major media conglomerate and the owner of CBS News, agreed to pay the president $16 million to settle an election interference lawsuit he filed against the network, one that was widely panned as frivolous by legal experts and media watchdogs.

Late last year, Disney paid Trump $15 million to settle a similar defamation case he brought against ABC News.

Despite Trump’s claims of an agreement, the Journal has indicated no plans to settle the case, and in a statement to The Hill on Wednesday the outlet said, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

For Trump and Murdoch, the personal fight is often sharper than the political or legal one, longtime observers of their dynamic say. 

Trump during the 2024 campaign railed against Murdoch as a “globalist” trying to “tear me down,” only to later host the mogul in the Oval Office once he won election and praise him as “an amazing guy.”

Coverage of his presidency in Murdoch’s Journal has been a thorn in the president’s side.

“I’ve been right over The Wall Street Journal a number of times,” Trump said in January with Murdoch sitting in the room. “I’ll have to talk to him. I don’t agree with him on some things.” 

Legal experts told The Hill this week Trump’s case against the Journal is likely on shaky ground and noted stories of such gravity are typically reviewed by corporate lawyers before publication. 

“It doesn’t seem like Trump brought this case because he expects it to be litigated all the way to the end, so it’s really going to be up to Murdoch to determine where this goes,” said Chris Mattei, a leading defamation attorney who represented the families of Sandy Hook students against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. “If he were to settle, it would be for purely political reasons, perhaps concern about how Trump could direct viewers at Fox to another outlet.”

Internal communications revealed as part of the Dominion lawsuit against the right-leaning network showed Murdoch and other top deputies at the outlet worrying about airing the president’s false claims of voter fraud.

Emails and text messages from top hosts showed many leaders at Fox voicing frustration that smaller right-wing networks were experiencing brief increases in viewership after the 2020 election, and worrying about angering its audience by dismissing Trump’s claims.

The recent bad blood shows the tension between Trump and Murdoch’s media properties is nearing another fever pitch, one Trump has invited as he navigates his way through mounting questions from his supporters on Epstein.

“This whole thing is a sign Trump believes his association with Epstein is a real political problem with his base. Filing this against Murdoch is a signal to that base,” Mattei said. “We’ve seen capitulation from other media companies. He thinks he’s on a roll against [them], and that’s another major factor fueling this.”