Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch has been considered a kingmaker in Republican circles. Now two men he shunned — former President Donald Trump and former Fox star Tucker Carlson — are in the spotlight.
Donald Trump Jr. said that Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch no longer commands the same fear and respect in the Republican Party he once did. “You had to bend the knee to him,” Trump Jr. said. “I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”
As this week has unfolded, it appears that Murdoch is the one bending the knee. In the twilight of his career and life, the 93-year-old billionaire arrived at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to watch in person as former President Donald Trump was formally nominated, a rare occurrence. An aide to Murdoch declined to comment for this story.
Murdoch has accompanied top executives at Fox News and the Wall Street Journal in visiting their teams in Milwaukee. Yet Murdoch was sure to notice Tucker Carlson, the former Fox primetime star whom the Murdochs fired last year after a raft of scandals at the network, standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump in the candidate’s own viewing box. Carlson received a hero’s welcome from former colleagues as he entered Fox’s green room at the convention site on Tuesday night, according to The New York Times. And Carlson appears set to deliver a major address tonight, before Trump’s acceptance speech. Fox News has not yet announced whether it would air Carlson’s talk.
The two men — MAGA hero and media mogul — passed within feet of each other at a Milwaukee hotel lobby yesterday, as documented by Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman on social media.Embraced and shunned by Murdoch and Fox
For years, Murdoch and Fox executives had indulged the false claims of both Trump and Carlson, recognizing their strong appeal to viewers.
