Former US president Donald Trump has launched an incendiary attack on Rupert Murdoch, accusing him of betraying Fox News hosts in a court deposition.
Mr Trump blasted the media magnate on Wednesday (US time), accusing him of “aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA”, (Mr Trump’s capitalisation) after Mr Murdoch’s admission in a lawsuit that Fox News hosts endorsed baseless claims the 2020 US presidential election was rigged.
“Some of our commentators were endorsing [the idea that the 2020 election was stolen],” Mr Murdoch told lawyers, when asked about Fox’s hosts’ on-air positions about the election, according to documents unsealed in Delaware State Court this week.
“I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it, in hindsight,” he said.
Mr Murdoch’s acknowledgement was included in a filing on Monday from Dominion Voting Systems, as part of the voting technology company’s $US1.6 billion ($2.4 billion) defamation lawsuit against Fox News and parent company Fox Corp over Fox’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election.
A five-week trial is scheduled to begin on April 17.
Mr Murdoch’s testimony is part of his deposition in the lawsuit. Parts of it have remained sealed.
Dominion has argued that internal communications and depositions by Fox personnel prove the network knowingly spread falsehoods about Mr Trump’s loss in the 2020 US presidential election in order to bolster its ratings.
On his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Mr Trump unloaded on the media baron, calling on Mr Murdoch and “his group of MAGA Hating Globalist RINOS” (Republicans in name only) to “get out of the News Business as soon as possible”. He said Mr Murdoch “scorns and ridicules” some “BRAVE & PATRIOTIC” hosts who “got it right” about the 2020 election.
Mr Trump also said on Truth Social there were “MASSIVE amounts of proof” to support his claims the 2020 election was stolen from him. Those claims have been debunked and his advisers warned him repeatedly after the election that his allegations were false.
“Why is Rupert Murdoch throwing his anchors under the table, which also happens to be killing his case and infuriating his viewers, who will again be leaving in droves – they already are,” Mr Trump wrote.
He then repeated unfounded claims of “large-scale ballot stuffing”.
Dominion’s defamation action claims that Fox embraced Mr Trump’s election fraud conspiracy theories because the channel was losing its audience after it became the first US TV outlet to call Arizona for Democrat candidate Joe Biden, and projected he would win the presidency.
After that declaration, Mr Murdoch said: “My friend Jared Kushner called me saying, ‘This is terrible,’ and I could hear Trump’s voice in the background shouting.”
He said that he had told Mr Kushner he could not change the outcome for Mr Trump because “the numbers are the numbers”.
Court documents show that after that call, Fox bosses were shocked at how many viewers began switching to other channels. The network delayed its final victory call, even after other networks had declared Mr Biden the election winner.
“We should and could have gone first but at least being second saves us a Trump explosion!” Mr Murdoch told his son and Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch in a private message.
Lachlan Murdoch responded: “I think good to be careful. Especially as we are still somewhat exposed on Arizona.”
Another publicly released email chain shows that Mr Murdoch emailed a Fox executive two days the Trump-inspired attack on Capital Hill to say the network was “very busy pivoting”.
“We want to make Trump a non person,” the emails show.
Fox has argued that its coverage of claims by Mr Trump’s lawyers were inherently newsworthy and protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
