Donald Trump gives a lot of strange media appearances, especially lately. But on Friday, he went on one Fox News show and told the hosts that he was on his way to go put pressure on their boss.
Trump, in New York for a series of campaign stops that included Thursday night’s Al Smith Dinner, made a rare in-studio appearance on Fox & Friends, Fox News’ morning show, where Trump was a fixture during the 2016 campaign.
In this appearance, as Trump sat in the middle of the couch, one of the hosts noted that Trump had “another event to go to,” and then Trump shared what the event was: A meeting with Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News’s parent company.
“I don’t know that he’s thrilled that I say it,” Trump said, and then added the purpose of the meeting: He was going to ask Murdoch to “not put on negative commercials for 21 days, and don’t put on their horrible people that come and lie. I’m gonna say Rupert, please do it this way, and then we’re gonna have a victory.”
Donald Trump concludes his Fox & Friends interview by saying he’s about to go meet with Rupert Murdoch and tell him Fox shouldn’t allow negative ads for the final 21 days or Democrats on air “and then we’ll have a victory, because I think everyone wants to have a victory.” pic.twitter.com/NoKxS4Q2Tv
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) October 18, 2024
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This sounded an awful lot like Trump was admitting that he planned to lean on the CEO of a media outlet for favorable coverage during a campaign. Although announcing his intention to ask Murdoch that on live television seemed to negate the necessity for the meeting in the first place.
While Murdoch and Fox news were instrumental in Trump’s political rise, their relationship has sometimes been rocky. Fox had some resistence to Trump in his first campaign, and Murdoch and Fox were reportedly not sold on Trump’s comeback in early stages of the primaries, even once imposing a “soft ban” on appearances by Trump, at least until it was clear that he would win the Republican primaries.
Murdoch has sometimes acted more honorably than expected in situations like these. John Carreyrou reported in “Bad Blood,” his book about the Theranos scandal, that Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes had once leaned on Murdoch, who had invested in Theranos, to spike Carreyrou’s reporting in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal about fraud at the company. Murdoch, however, refused.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
