Foxholes: Would Fox Take Donald Trump's Side Against Rupert Murdoch? Uh ... Yes.

The Epstein story, currently fracturing the Trump coalition, is now poised to pit two NewsCorp properties against each other.

https://newrepublic.com/article/198148/fox-trump-epstein-rupert-murdoch

https://archive.ph/eHEyK



I probably should have spent some of my weekend watching Fox News to see how the network was handling the recently reengaged Donald Trump–Rupert Murdoch feud, but for certain duties, there’s just not enough battle pay. The best I could muster was to read the report filed Friday evening by Justin Baragona of The Independent, who reviewed some transcripts in the first 24 hours after Birthdaycardgate broke and found that Fox had teased a segment on the story—but never did get around to airing it.

These next few days are going to be interesting. The open question: How will Rupert Murdoch’s Fox charges cover the explosive story popped last week by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, and the continuing fallout from it? Fox’s framing, and the details into which they do or don’t delve, will have a lot to say about what kind of impact this story has. Plus there’s the added frisson that Trump is now suing Murdoch and the Journal for (right pinky to corner of mouth, please) 10 beellion dollars. Like a lot of Trump’s lawsuits, this one seems designed not solely or necessarily to win damages but to cow the Journal into not publishing more such stories.

So which side will Fox take? One would think it would take the side, duh, of the man who owns it. But while Rupert may own it, he doesn’t run it. That dark duty is the province of Lachlan Murdoch and Suzanne Scott. And the question of where their loyalties lie might be a little more complicated than blood.

As it happens, earlier on the very day the Journal story broke, Representative Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wrote Lachlan Murdoch and Scott a letter. He charged that back during the campaign, Fox & Friends had selectively edited an interview Trump did with the show about Epstein. The original segment had Trump being asked if he would release the Epstein files as president and replying, “Yeah, yeah, I would.” The fuller answer, which Fox aired later after pressure, had Trump adding a caveat or two. Garcia told the two execs that he wanted any information on whether the Trump campaign “put pressure on Fox News to edit” the interview to “mislead the public.”

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