Donald Trump Lashes Out After Rupert Murdoch-Owned Media Outlets Pin Blame On Him For Midterm MessTed Johnson | Deadline
Thu, November 10, 2022 at 10:39 AM
Donald Trump very unsurprisingly lashed out at “fake news” and “enemy of the people!” in a series of post-midterm, middle-of-the-night and early morning posts, but his responses differed a bit in that they were coming as some Rupert Murdoch-media outlets were making him the culprit for Republicans disappointing results.
“Trump Is The Republican Party’s Biggest Loser,” read the headline of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. “What will Democrats do when Donald Trump isn’t around to lose elections?” the editorial read.
The New York Post featured Trump as “Trumpty Dumpty.” The subhead was, “Don (who couldn’t build a wall) had a great fall — can all the GOP’s men put the party back together again?”
On Fox News, there was considerable attention to Ron DeSantis’s lopsided victory in Florida, a further irritant to Trump who already has gotten in a few digs to his potential rival for the GOP nomination in 2024.
On her primetime show on Wednesday, Laura Ingraham cited DeSantis’ victory, referring to the strategy for winning as the future of the GOP. She said that the GOP in 2024 has to be focused on winning and “not just making a point or settling a score.” She also said that if voters “conclude that you are putting your own ego or your own grudges ahead of what’s good for the country, they’re going to look elsewhere.” She didn’t specifically name Trump as that person, but the point seemed to be pretty clear.
On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump, as he has done before, called for another media outlet to go pro-Trump. He wrote, “Despite having picked so many winners, I have to put up with the Fake News. For me, Fox News was always gone, even in 2015-16 when I began my ‘journey,’ but now they’re really gone. Such an opportunity for another media outlet to make an absolute fortune, and do good for America. Let’s see what happens?”
Trump reportedly was looking to next week to announce a 2024 presidential campaign, but some of his own former advisers have suggested that he delay it until after the Georgia runoff, which will feature one of his endorsed candidates, Herschel Walker, face off with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA).
Although Trump has touted the number of wins by his endorsed candidates, many of them were in solidly red districts. Perhaps the biggest sting was that of Mehmet Oz, who lost to Democrat John Fetterman in the cycle’s most expensive and highest profile Senate race.
Trump wrote of the Oz race by giving him some praise, but also distancing himself from him.
Trump wrote, “There is a Fake Story being promulgated by third rate reporter Maggie Hagaman of the Failing New York Times, that I am blaming our great former First Lady, Melania, and Sean Hannity, that I was angry with their pushing me to Endorse Dr. Oz. First of all Oz is a wonderful guy who really worked hard and was a very good candidate, but he WAS LONG IN THE RACE before I ever Endorsed him, they had NOTHING to do with it, he was not a ‘denier’ (his mistake!), & I was not at all ANGRY. Fake News!”
If Trump goes forward with an announcement next week, he’ll be competing not only with all of the attention paid to DeSantis but to his former vice president, Mike Pence, who is publishing his memoir ahead of a potential presidential run, with interviews scheduled with ABC News anchor David Muir and a town hall on CNN. The Journal published an excerpt of the book on Thursday, in which Pence confirms that Trump said he would be a “wimp” if he didn’t move to block the electoral vote count on January 6, 2021. “You’re too honest,” Trump griped to Pence during one testy exchange as the then-president pressured him to take such action.
The big caveat to the notion that media figures on the right are about to drop Trump in favor of some other figure is that it is a bit of deja vu.
As Noah Schachtman, editor in chief of Rolling Stone, noted, Trump has been written off many times before, even from Murdoch owned media.
Home 
