bombshell story<\/a> detailing a 2003 birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein bearing Trump\u2019s name and a drawing of a naked woman.\n <\/p>\n\n \u201cI told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn\u2019t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I\u2019m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday night.\n <\/p>\n
\n He followed up on Friday morning and said \u201cI look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his \u2018pile of garbage\u2019 newspaper, the WSJ.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump has a long history of legal threats against news outlets, and doesn\u2019t always follow through with actual lawsuits. In this case, he did not specify what exactly he\u2019d sue the newspaper for, though his camp referenced \u201cdefamatory lies.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n But the mere threat of a lawsuit opened a new chapter in the operatic relationship between Trump and Murdoch, the 93-year-old patriarch who controls the Journal, Fox News and other conservative media brands.\n <\/p>\n
\n The relationship is often mutually beneficial, but occasionally turns ugly, as both men maneuver for power. One executive who has worked closely with Murdoch told CNN that \u201cRupert loves to poke the president in the eye once in a while.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n A spokesperson for the Journal declined to comment on Trump\u2019s threat or on the assertion that he directly spoke with Murdoch before publication.\n <\/p>\n
Get Reliable Sources newsletter<\/p>\n
\n In an earlier statement posted to Truth Social, Trump\u2019s team said he \u201cpersonally\u201d warned Murdoch that the letter was \u201ca FAKE.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cMr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so,\u201d the statement said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Additionally, the Journal\u2019s top editor, Emma Tucker, \u201cwas told directly by Karoline Leavitt, and by President Trump, that the letter was a FAKE, but Emma Tucker didn\u2019t want to hear that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The statement confirmed rumors that had been swirling in political and media circles: namely, that the White House was trying to prevent the Journal from publishing a story involving Trump and Epstein.\n <\/p>\n
\n The buzz about a potentially embarrassing story started not long after Trump dismissed the growing Epstein controversy as a \u201choax\u201d conjured up by Democrats to hurt him and berated his own followers as \u201cstupid\u201d and \u201cfoolish\u201d for caring about it.\n <\/p>\n
\n According to the Journal, the publication sought comment from the president on Tuesday. His \u201choax\u201d comments came on Wednesday morning.\n <\/p>\n
\n According to the Journal\u2019s story, Trump told the publication, \u201cI\u2019m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump\u2019s expression of confidence may have stemmed from his lawsuits against ABC News and CBS News, both of which ended with legal settlements that directed money toward Trump\u2019s future presidential library.\n <\/p>\n
\n But the legal threat did not deter the Journal from publishing.\n <\/p>\n
\n The story, titled \u201cJeffrey Epstein\u2019s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump,\u201d immediately rose to the top of the Journal\u2019s most-read list. It was also featured on the front page of Friday\u2019s print edition.\n <\/p>\n
\n Inside the Journal newsroom, staffers expressed pride about the publication\u2019s decision to run the report despite the president\u2019s attempt to squash it. Multiple staffers called it a \u201cbrave\u201d act.\n <\/p>\n
Breaking up and making up<\/p>\n
\n Depending on the day and the news cycle, Trump refers to Murdoch\u2019s media empire as either a valuable ally or a vicious enemy.\n <\/p>\n
\n Since returning to the White House in January, he has been particularly perturbed by the Journal\u2019s editorials, which are separate from the newsroom.\n <\/p>\n
\n He has been both complimentary and critical of Murdoch, reflecting the complexities of a relationship that goes back decades.\n <\/p>\n
\n Murdoch\u2019s right-wing media machine played a key role in Trump\u2019s path to the presidency. Murdoch initially savored the stunning degree of influence he had with the Trump White House. But he personally soured on Trump by 2020, even as the most popular hosts on Fox continued to promote the Trump agenda.\n <\/p>\n
\n Murdoch\u2019s media holdings distanced themselves from the president after the January 6, 2021, attack, and the mogul told a colleague that \u201cwe want to make Trump a non person,\u201d according to emails obtained through court battles over Fox\u2019s airing of 2020 election lies.\n <\/p>\n
\n But as the Republican base re-embraced Trump, so too did Murdoch, leading critics to charge that the nonagenarian was protecting his family\u2019s financial interests.\n <\/p>\n
\n In many ways, the two men still scratch each other\u2019s backs, despite the scar tissue that has built up over the years.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cRupert Murdoch is in a class by himself, he\u2019s an amazing guy,\u201d Trump gushed on a February afternoon when Murdoch stopped by the Oval Office while cameras were rolling.\n <\/p>\n
\n Murdoch is now chairman emeritus of his companies, making room for his son Lachlan to run the businesses on a day-to-day basis. Lachlan was seen with Trump during the FIFA Club World Cup final at MetLife Stadium last weekend.\n <\/p>\n
\n But in recent days, when Trump wanted to persuade the Journal to kill the story, he went straight to the patriarch, to no avail.\n <\/p>\n
\n This story has been updated with new developments.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 President Trump is vowing to sue the Wall Street Journal and owner Rupert Murdoch over the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":72969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-72968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114874936510298397","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}