Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 plans may have been complicated by something unexpected.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, News Corp and Fox News Corporation, both sharply turned on Trump this week and directly blamed the 45th president for the Republican Party’s disappointing 2022 midterm results.
Guests on Fox News Channel, writers on Fox News’ website, and Murdoch-owned newspapers The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post all celebrated a potential Trump 2024 rival… and simultaneously slammed the 45th president.
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Murdoch has pitted Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-F.L., against Trump — and it could get ugly quickly.
“I think Governor DeSantis is the single biggest winner of the night,” Newt Gingrich, the former GOP House Speaker, told Fox News Channel’sr “Fox & Friends.” He predicted that DeSantis will “almost certainly become the rallying point for everybody in the Republican Party who wants to move beyond President Trump.”
“DeFUTURE,” beemed the Murdoch-owned New York Post after the election.
Another frontpage headline by the newspaper blasted Trump as “Trumpity Dumpity” and “Toxic Trump” in an opinion piece Thursday under the headline, “Donald Trump sabotaged the Republican midterms.”
“A NEW ERA,” said Fox News Digital contributor Liz Peek said after DeSantis’ win.
The website crowned him the “new leader of the Republican Party” and said “Republicans are ready to move on without Donald Trump.”
“Rival’s victory puts Trump comeback in doubt,” wrote The Times, a U.K newspaper owned by Murdoch.
And The Wall Street Journal editorial board, a newspaper also owned by Murdoch, wrote: “There’s little doubt that his Florida success will grab the attention of voters outside the Sunshine State.”
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“You can bet Donald J. Trump was watching — unhappily,” The Journal said.
“Oh dear Donald Trump, do you really want to be a bigger loser than Hillary Clinton?” asked Murdoch-owned The Sun.
It seems Murdoc has waited for this moment for years. Insiders have claimed Murdoch has grown tired of Trump’s leadership and wanted to “throw him over.”
According to an Associated Press report, the stinging rebukes have impacted Trump allies, who called for a delay to his planned 2024 presidential campaign announcement next week.
“I’ll be advising him that he move his announcement until after the Georgia runoff,” said former Trump adviser Jason Miller, who spent the night with the former president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. “Georgia needs to be the focus of every Republican in the country right now,” he said.
Trump fired back at the media coverage on his Truth Social website.
“While in certain ways yesterday’s election was somewhat disappointing, from my personal standpoint it was a very big victory – 219 WINS and 16 Losses in the General – Who has ever done better than that?” Trump wrote.
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“Incredible how dishonest the Fake News Media is. The Failing New York Times has gone crazy. So many of the people I Endorsed went on to victory on Tuesday Night, nobody was even close, and they literally make up a story refusing to write the facts, and only quoting enemies and losers,” he said.
“Almost all of the people I endorsed WON, yet if you read the story from two Trump hating writers (who only do as they are told!), you would not even recognize the truth. They truly are, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!!!”
“…219 WINS against 16 LOSSES IN THE GENERAL ELECTION, and yet the Fake News writes only unrecognizable junk. No wonder they are all doing sooo badly!” Trump concluded.
But Trump seemed to take the Murdoch bait when he also compared his 2020 campaign numbers to DeSantis’ sweeping victory in Florida.
“Now that the Election in Florida is over, and everything went quite well, shouldn’t it be said that in 2020, I got 1.1 Million more votes in Florida than Ron D got this year, 5.7 Million to 4.6 Million? Just asking?” he wrote.
And in a recent interview, he suggested that DeSantis could “be more gracious” for Trump’s previous support.
It is worth noting that Trump notched some big wins Tuesday, particularly in Ohio, where his pick for the Senate, “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance, sailed to easy victory after Trump’s endorsement catapulted him to the front of a crowded primary pack.
In North Carolina, Rep. Ted Budd, an early Trump pick, kept an open Senate seat in GOP hands.
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A spokesman for Trump, Taylor Budowich, touted Trump’s endorsement record and said, “As President Trump looks to the future, he will continue to champion his America First agenda that won overwhelmingly at the ballot box last night.”
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article