Rupert Murdoch’s conservative media empire helped propel Donald Trump’s remarkable rise from tabloid-friendly New York real estate mogul and reality show star to the presidency.
But in the wake of disappointing results for the Republican Party in Tuesday’s midterm elections, Murdoch-owned media outlets — the New York Post, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal — are blaming Trump for the GOP’s lackluster performance, and appear ready to move on from the former president.
On its front page Wednesday morning, the New York Post anointed DeSantis "DeFuture" of the GOP. On Thursday, it took fresh aim at Trump, depicting him as "Trumpty Dumpty."
"Don (who couldn't build a wall) had a great fall," the Post headline read. "Can all the GOP's men put the party back together again?"
"Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser," the Wall Street Journal declared in a scathing editorial on Wednesday evening.
"He has now flopped in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022," the WSJ Editorial Board wrote. "What will Democrats do when Donald Trump isn’t around to lose elections?"
"Ron DeSantis is the new Republican Party leader," Fox News declared in an online editorial after the Florida governor secured a resounding reelection victory ahead of his looming decision whether to run for president in 2024.
"The biggest winner of the midterm elections was Ron DeSantis," the editorial read. "The biggest loser was Donald Trump."
The attacks from Murdoch’s formerly Trump-friendly media outlets come as key races that will determine control of Congress remain too close to call. But whatever the outcome, the so-called red wave that many Republicans were expecting failed to materialize.
“Definitely not a Republican wave, that’s for darn sure,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and a close ally of Trump, said on NBC News.
They also come as Trump is preparing to launch another White House run. The former president is planning to make a “big announcement” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 15.
Some members of the GOP are urging Trump to delay the expected launch.
“I’ll be advising him that he move his announcement until after the Georgia runoff,” former Trump adviser Jason Miller told the Associated Press. “Georgia needs to be the focus of every Republican in the country right now.”
Georgia’s Senate race between Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock and his Trump-backed Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, will be decided in a runoff on Dec. 6 after neither candidate captured more than 50% of the vote required to win.
Trump is reportedly “fuming” over losses by some of his endorsed candidates, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, who lost his bid for U.S. Senate to Democrat John Fetterman in Pennsylvania.
“Almost every one of these Trump-endorsed candidates that you see in competitive states has lost,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday. “It’s a huge loss for Trump. And, again, it shows that his political instincts are not about the party, they’re not about the country — they’re about him.”
Meanwhile, the former president claims he is not mad about the midterms.
“For those many people that are being fed the fake narrative from the corrupt media that I am Angry about the Midterms, don’t believe it,” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social, his social platform. “I am not at all angry, did a great job (I wasn’t the one running!), and am very busy looking into the future. Remember, I am a ‘Stable Genius.’”