Just minutes before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was set to get underway in April 2023, New York Post Editor-in-Chief Keith Poole and star columnist Miranda Devine were on a mission to find an extra seat. Inside the Washington Hilton hotel, the pair had a very special guest that they needed to accommodate and their table was oversubscribed. After some musical chairs among staffers, Vivek Ramaswamy spent much of the evening talking with Poole, a Brit feted as a “boy wonder” in Murdoch circles.
Poole, who like all Murdoch editors has a direct line to “the boss,” had already created waves in his handling of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential announcement. “Been There, Don That” was the headline that was tucked away on page 26 of the Nov. 22, 2022 edition of the Post. But it was the teaser at the bottom of the front page that went viral. “Florida man makes announcement.”
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Soon, Poole would be in a pickle. It was nearly six months on from his newspaper’s trolling of Trump and he, like all Murdoch editors, was trying to identify a viable competitor to Trump. In November 2022, the paper had declared Ron DeSantis “DeFuture.” By May 2023, the paper doubled down with “Off and Ronning: DeSantis pitches ‘Great American Comeback,’” but insiders now acknowledge that what followed was inevitable. By January of this year, the paper ran a front-page “Don It Again” after Trump won the New Hampshire primary, and by March 5 it was declaring, “It’s a Don Deal.” In an even more blunt turn as campaigning for the general election got underway, the March 29 issue of the paper led with a split screen of Trump and Joe Biden and headlined it: “Give and Take — Trump attends wake for killed hero NYPD cop…as 3 Dem presidents shut down city for glitzy $25M fundraiser.”
If it all feels familiar for the Post, it didn’t have to be that way. In 2020, Rupert Murdoch was angered that Trump was going to lose what he thought was a winnable election. When Fox called the results for a Biden Arizona win, the audience was outraged. The mogul, shocked by the backlash, told confidants he was concerned viewers would decamp for alternatives such as Newsmax and OAN.
Now, four years later, those close to Trump tell The Hollywood Reporter the ex-president is keen to establish more of a relationship with Murdoch’s eldest son and Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan, 52. The two first met at a state dinner for Scott Morrison, then Australia’s prime minister, at the White House in 2019. “The leadership baton has passed, and there’s recognition that [Trump] does not have the history or depth of relationship with Lachlan that he’s always been able to count on with Rupert,” says a person familiar with the matter. Reps for Trump, Murdoch and Fox declined to comment.
Like the Post, Fox News has been subject to contortions over the former president. After essentially banning Trump from going live on its airwaves for two years, it welcomed the president back for a town hall event in January. Before that, Trump’s interviews were pretaped — an insurance mechanism after the network was forced to pay out almost $800 million to settle the Dominion lawsuit, which had scarred the Murdochs’ prized asset. (During testimony for the case, the elder Murdoch, now 93, was asked directly if he believed Trump’s claims that he won by “millions of votes that were shifted by Dominion software” in 2020. “No, I’ve never believed that,” Murdoch replied. In an email disclosed in discovery, Murdoch sent a longtime lieutenant, Col Allan, who edited the Post, his take on Rudy Giuliani. “Just saw Rudy ranting. Terrible influence on Donald,” Murdoch wrote, days after the Nov. 3 presidential election.)
For a long time after the settlement, Fox had pushed alternatives to Trump. DeSantis. Ramaswamy. Nikki Haley. But around Christmas last year it became clear Trump would be making a triumphant return.
“I can’t escape a feeling that it’s with great reluctance on the part of Lachlan and Rupert that Fox News finds itself with no alternative but to support Trump,” Lachlan’s biographer Paddy Manning, author of The Successor, says from Adelaide, Australia, where Rupert Murdoch got his start in newspapers. “Lachlan has got to put his personal politics and preferences to one side and focus on the business, which is entirely premised on providing a right-leaning political diet to a base that is increasingly radicalized.”
With Rupert Murdoch moving last year into a new role as chairman emeritus of both Fox Corp. and News Corp. and now planning his fifth wedding, all eyes will be on his son, who is based in Sydney with his wife and children. “I think the reality is Lachlan is calling the shots, but he is also never going to stop his father from emailing or speaking to anyone in the company that he built,” Manning says. “Lachlan’s personal politics, worldview and preference for this coming election are beside the point. What matters is what goes to air and whether he supports it, endorses it or otherwise, the impact is the same.”
Of course, since its launch in 1996, Fox News has always been programmed for an audience that bought into the idea of countering the “mainstream media.” Late founder Roger Ailes (and current CEO Suzanne Scott) was said to have a sixth sense for what their viewers want. But Fox’s strength isn’t making a unilateral decision about what they are going to put on; it’s audience strategy. Now it’s obvious: The audience wants Trump. And since the $71.3 billion sale of assets like 20th Century Studios, FX and National Geographic to Disney in 2019, Fox News plays an outsize role in revenue and profits for Fox Corp.
Murdoch insiders say the pivot back to Trump by the Post and Fox was as predictable as the real estate mogul’s rants on his bully pulpit Truth Social, where he assails Biden and, also, Fox News coverage. (“They don’t want to discuss how ridiculous the Corrupt Judge’s fine of 450 Million Dollars is. It should be $ZERO,” Trump wrote of Fox and New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case in March.)
Meanwhile, at Murdoch’s financial broadsheet, editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal Emma Tucker is preparing to manage her first U.S. presidential election in the role. Tucker, who joined the paper last year from The Sunday Times, has overseen several high-profile layoffs, including in the Journal’s D.C. bureau.
Across the pond, another election could see the Murdochs change allegiances. The U.K.’s Labour Party, under opposition leader Keir Starmer, is expected to seal a victory in the general election, which must be held no later than January 2025, and Murdoch’s The Sun is considering throwing its weight behind Starmer, two sources say. (The Sun lost $82 million last year as the costs for the phone-hacking scandal continue to add up. Times Media, owner of the Times and Sunday Times, had a more positive result reporting a profit just shy of $76 million.) That political flip might be mercenary, but it’s right out of the playbook that Murdoch has been using for decades: He always backs the winner.
A version of this story first appeared in the April 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
