Murdoch’s Media Empire Turns on Trump After Republican Midterm Defeat

The New York Post, Fox News and The Wall Street Journal are signaling a striking change in tone toward the president. Behind the criticism is a powerful media owner who has little appetite for political losers and is already looking beyond Trump.

The warning came from a newspaper that has spent years helping Donald Trump command the attention of conservative America. “Look in the mirror, Mr. President,” the New York Post told him, pointing to Trump as the man responsible for the Republican Party’s midterm defeat. It was not a liberal editorial attacking the White House. It was a message from one of the most recognizable titles in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire — and a sign that the ground beneath the president may be shifting.

The change is larger than a hostile headline. Across Murdoch’s media outlets, the tone toward Trump has begun to harden just as the Republican defeat has raised questions about the party’s future and the president’s ability to lead it. Fox News, for years Trump’s most influential television megaphone, also began to sound less accommodating as the election results came in. Trump noticed. In a series of angry posts, he attacked the network he has long favored, even objecting to the tone of voice used by one of its hosts.

The Financial Times has described the shift as part of a broader reckoning inside a media empire that appears to be preparing for a post-Trump era. The Wall Street Journal moved quickly after the polls closed, calling Trump the “principal architect” of the Republican defeat. It blamed his second term, which it described as “erratic and self-absorbed,” for squandering a rare opportunity to advance conservative reform. Its message to Republicans was unmistakable: the party needs to reconsider what it stands for.

The New York Post has made the break even more visible through its front pages. One showed Trump overwhelmed by a “blue tsunami,” a reference to the Democrats’ gains. The next featured an irritated JD Vance looking down at the president, with a pun linking the vice president’s opposition to the Iran war to the Republican setback. The paper still offered its readers a consolation: Democratic arrogance, it suggested, would probably lead the party to overreach and create an opening for a Republican candidate in 2028. But the contrast with its previous treatment of Trump was difficult to miss.

Even Sean Hannity, one of the president’s favorite interviewers and a familiar presence in his media orbit, acknowledged that the Iran war had influenced the election “100 percent.” The conflict, which Vance did not support from the outset, has become one of the central explanations for the Republican losses.

There is a straightforward calculation behind the change in tone. Murdoch has never been known for loyalty to political losers. A former senior News Corp. executive told the Financial Times that the media magnate has long been skilled at identifying likely winners early, positioning himself to influence their agendas and ensuring that they feel indebted to him. Murdoch, the former executive said, has an exceptional instinct for sensing which way the political wind is blowing. “Rupert doesn’t want to be on the side of a loser,” the manager added. “He doesn’t care about Trump anymore; he cares about the audience.”

And that audience may be moving on, too. Fox News’ prime-time ratings fell 28 percent year over year in October. On Monday, Fox Corp. chief executive Lachlan Murdoch told investors that the company had detected signs of “audience fatigue” with the network. Fox remains comfortably ahead of CNN and MS NOW, but the decline is a warning for a broadcaster whose influence has been closely tied to Trump’s political rise.

There is a risk in moving too far, too quickly. Fox’s conservative viewers may not follow the network if it distances itself from the president. Newsmax, which has built an audience by taking positions further to the right than Fox, could benefit from any perceived retreat.

Murdoch’s calculations also extend beyond the immediate electoral fallout. At 95, the Australian-born media mogul is concerned with the future of the empire he built and the political direction it will take after his death. His conservative agenda has shaped the group’s coverage for decades. Last year, he agreed to pay more than $3 billion to three of his children to secure the transfer of control of the media empire to his eldest son, Lachlan, preserving its rightward editorial orientation.

The question now is whether Trump still serves that project. The Wall Street Journal has urged Republicans to debate their values in the “post-Donald Trump era” — and expressed the hope that they would begin doing so soon. The New York Post’s rebuke, Fox’s changing tone and the Journal’s editorial intervention suggest that the conversation has already begun inside the Murdoch empire.

For a media owner who has spent decades cultivating political influence, the midterm defeat may be less a reason to defend Trump than an opportunity to identify who comes next.

(Photo: © AndKronos)