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The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump worked to kill a story about his friendship with Epstein. Now we know why
For days before the Wall Street Journal published its story about Donald Trump's salacious friendship with Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday, the president was frantically working the phones. He reportedly put pressure on the paper's top editor, Emma Tucker, and even Rupert Murdoch, who controls the paper's business side, claiming that the alleged facts behind the story were nothing but a hoax, and threatening to sue the paper if it forged ahead. How worked up was he? 'On a fucking warpath,' one administration official told Rolling Stone magazine. Now that the story has been published – appearing on the Journal's print-edition front page, no less – and picked up everywhere, it's easy to see what Trump was so upset about. And equally easy to see why trying snuff it out in advance became such a high priority. It's not just that the 50th birthday card he reportedly penned for the future convicted child-sex offender is so damning in itself, with its bawdy sketch and references to shared secrets and 'enigmas' that 'never age'. It's not just that Trump has been denying a tight friendship with Epstein – who died in jail in 2019 – for some time, and that this would clearly put the lie to that. It's not just that he really, really wants this scandal to go away since it has been turning swaths of his normally cult-like base against him. No, there's another element – and a brutal one for the president. It's where the story was published: in the Wall Street Journal, whose conservative opinion side has often backed him and whose news side has a reputation for ensuring that explosive stories are bulletproof: accurate in their facts and fully prepared to stand up under legal scrutiny. What's more, the newspaper is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, Trump's most important media ally. Murdoch's rightwing propaganda outfit, Fox News, has been Trump's cheerleader and alter ego for years and played a crucial role in getting him elected twice. (Fox News has been much more docile in recent days, doing Trump's bidding by almost shutting down its reporting and commentary on Epstein and Trump.) And Murdoch's right-leaning tabloid the New York Post tends to stand by Trump, too. The Journal is widely perceived as right of center politically, with a reputation for pin-striped rectitude. In short, they don't make things up. When the paper has taken a big swing at exposing wrongdoing – do you remember John Carreyrou's exposé of the blood-testing company Theranos, by any chance? – their reporting holds up. All of that made JD Vance's complaints ring awfully hollow after the birthday card story ran. 'Forgive my language, but this story is complete and utter bullshit,' Vance posted on X shortly after it published. 'Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?' And it made Trump's vehement denials and threats look absurd. Even in the Maga mind, the Journal is not the third-rate rag he tried to make it out to be. One part of Trump's denial efforts fell hilariously flat after he claimed that it was not his style to draw sketches. ('I never wrote a picture in my life,' he claimed.) The internet was soon flooded with his signed doodles and drawings over many years. Granted, Trump has had a lot of success in recent months in his various suits against big news organizations – in particular CBS News, whose parent company, Paramount Global, recently settled a worthless case for $16m. Capitulation and cowering has run rampant. And each one of the settlements makes it easier for Trump to start the next court battle with every expectation that he'll prevail, well before a suit ever reaches a courtroom. This, I suspect, will be quite different. A lawsuit won't make this damning story go away. And I doubt that Trump really wants to put himself through legal discovery, with all the ugliness that might be exposed. Will this be an element of Trump's long-awaited downfall? Few are willing to go that far, after all the scandals that have come and gone, too numerous to detail and each one regarded as the final straw. But at a time when Magaworld is finally having its doubts about their dear leader and savior, this one really hurts. Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump worked to kill a story about his friendship with Epstein. Now we know why
For days before the Wall Street Journal published its story about Donald Trump's salacious friendship with Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday, the president was frantically working the phones. He reportedly put pressure on the paper's top editor, Emma Tucker, and even Rupert Murdoch, who controls the paper's business side, claiming that the alleged facts behind the story were nothing but a hoax, and threatening to sue the paper if it forged ahead. How worked up was he? 'On a fucking warpath,' one administration official told Rolling Stone magazine. Now that the story has been published – appearing on the Journal's print-edition front page, no less – and picked up everywhere, it's easy to see what Trump was so upset about. And equally easy to see why trying snuff it out in advance became such a high priority. It's not just that the 50th birthday card he reportedly penned for the future convicted child-sex offender is so damning in itself, with its bawdy sketch and references to shared secrets and 'enigmas' that 'never age'. It's not just that Trump has been denying a tight friendship with Epstein – who died in jail in 2019 – for some time, and that this would clearly put the lie to that. It's not just that he really, really wants this scandal to go away since it has been turning swaths of his normally cult-like base against him. No, there's another element – and a brutal one for the president. It's where the story was published: in the Wall Street Journal, whose conservative opinion side has often backed him and whose news side has a reputation for ensuring that explosive stories are bulletproof: accurate in their facts and fully prepared to stand up under legal scrutiny. What's more, the newspaper is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, Trump's most important media ally. Murdoch's rightwing propaganda outfit, Fox News, has been Trump's cheerleader and alter ego for years and played a crucial role in getting him elected twice. (Fox News has been much more docile in recent days, doing Trump's bidding by almost shutting down its reporting and commentary on Epstein and Trump.) And Murdoch's right-leaning tabloid the New York Post tends to stand by Trump, too. The Journal is widely perceived as right of center politically, with a reputation for pin-striped rectitude. In short, they don't make things up. When the paper has taken a big swing at exposing wrongdoing – do you remember John Carreyrou's exposé of the blood-testing company Theranos, by any chance? – their reporting holds up. All of that made JD Vance's complaints ring awfully hollow after the birthday card story ran. 'Forgive my language, but this story is complete and utter bullshit,' Vance posted on X shortly after it published. 'Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?' And it made Trump's vehement denials and threats look absurd. Even in the Maga mind, the Journal is not the third-rate rag he tried to make it out to be. One part of Trump's denial efforts fell hilariously flat after he claimed that it's not his style to draw sketches. ('I never wrote a picture in my life,' he claimed.) The internet was soon flooded with his signed doodles and drawings over many years. Granted, Trump has had a lot of success in recent months in his various suits against big news organizations – in particular CBS News, whose parent company, Paramount Global, recently settled a worthless case for $16m. Capitulation and cowering has run rampant. And each one of the settlements makes it easier for Trump to start the next court battle with every expectation that he'll prevail, well before a suit ever reaches a courtroom. This, I suspect, will be quite different. A lawsuit won't make this damning story go away. And I doubt that Trump really wants to put himself through legal discovery, with all the ugliness that might be exposed. Will this be an element of Trump's long-awaited downfall? Few are willing to go that far, after all the scandals that have come and come, too numerous to detail and each one regarded as the final straw. But at a time when Magaworld is finally having its doubts about their dear leader and savior, this one really hurts. Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Murdoch-Trump rift opens over Epstein – but don't expect a decisive break
Threats to sue. Angry calls to editors. Public denunciations. In the wake of the Wall Street Journal's story claiming Donald Trump contributed to a 'bawdy' letter to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – featuring a drawing of a naked woman's silhouette around a typewritten personal message – the president's relationship with the outlet's proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, appears on the surface to have deteriorated from temperamental to terminal. Just a few days ago, the 94-year-old mogul was spotted among the president's high-profile guests at the Fifa Club World Cup final. Following the publication of the article, however, Murdoch now finds himself on the president's lengthy list of media opponents threatened with court action. In an unprecedented environment in which a sitting president regularly takes direct aim at the media, there have been numerous claims of big outlets making decisions that make life easier for their billionaire owners. Yet the Journal published the Epstein allegations even after Trump picked up the phone to its British editor, Emma Tucker, to demand that she ditch the story. Trump also claims Murdoch himself was approached to stop the article, to no avail. According to some media watchers, it is the latest sign that Murdoch is taking a different approach to Trump's return than some of his fellow billionaire moguls. Even before the Epstein story dropped on Thursday, Murdoch's Journal continued to criticise Trump from the right over some of his early decisions. In January, its editorial page took aim at his unconditional pardon for many of those who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. It also accused Trump of 'pleasing China's Xi Jinping above a law passed by Congress' with what it described as the 'illegal' suspension of a law forcing TikTok to break from ByteDance, its Chinese owner. It has also criticised Trump for launching new family crypto tokens. It wasn't that long ago, either, that Murdoch was Trump's guest in the Oval office. Even then, however, tensions were on display. Trump brought up his disagreements with the Journal, which had recently dubbed his tariff battle with Canada and Mexico as 'the dumbest trade war in history'. It has led some to regard Murdoch's Journal as representing a political band on the right aware of Trump's political draw, but sceptical about his economic effects – particularly around the use of tariffs as a constant weapon in his international dealings. Yet the Journal's critical stance on aspects of Trump's presidency is far from proof of a decisive break between Murdoch and the president. Murdoch's Fox News – the cash cow of his media businesses and a powerhouse in the Maga world – continues to provide supportive content. The Epstein letter story was relegated to an opinion piece low down on the network's online homepage on Friday morning. And those who have watched Murdoch's career closely over the decades tend to conclude that, ultimately, his decisions are driven by business. With the Journal appealing to economically hawkish Trump sceptics on the right and Fox News continuing to serve up content for Trump supporters, Murdoch finds himself at the helm of a media empire on the right with all bases covered. The episode also highlights that, just a few months into Trump's second coming, internal pressures are pulling at the threads of big players in the Maga media. Already, influential pro-Trump personalities – most notably Tucker Carlson and Laura Loomer - have protested at the lack of action around releasing all documentation relating to Epstein. Others stick to Trump's line that the existence of extensive files related to the disgraced financier is a 'hoax'. The saga appears to confirm Murdoch's status as a different beast from some of the more recent arrivals to media ownership, developing a skin as thick as rhinoceros hide in his decades making and breaking political careers. As the veteran media writer Ben Smith has put it: 'If you want to be a mogul, as the Murdochs have learned over the decades, you can't make yourself quite that easy to bully.'
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Afternoon Update: Trump threatens to sue Murdoch; the Late Show put to bed; and no boredom, no eureka
Welcome, readers, to Afternoon Update. Donald Trump has threatened to sue Rupert Murdoch over what he calls a 'false, malicious, defamatory story', as the US president seeks to tamp down controversy over a story run in the Wall Street Journal that he allegedly contributed a 'bawdy' birthday note for Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, replete with a sketch of a naked woman's silhouette. Trump said in a post to Truth Social that he had personally told the Journal's owner, Murdoch, and editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, that the letter was fake and that he would sue if a story about the letter was published. 'Mr Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but obviously did not have the power to do so,' Trump wrote. 'Instead they are going with a false, malicious, defamatory story anyway. President Trump will be suing the Wall Street Journal, News Corp and Mr Murdoch shortly.' Trump's comments come as he said separately that he had directed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to Epstein's sex-trafficking case, citing 'the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein'. Bondi, who has weathered days of accusations by Trump's far-right supporters that she had mismanaged and failed to deliver on promises to release previously secret documents about the Epstein case, vowed to comply with the directive. The latest episode of Full Story explores the tricky situation the president finds himself in as he goes to war with some of his most faithful followers. Palestinian woman released from immigration detention in Sydney a week after assistant minister cancelled her visa Court throws out pro-Israel lobby bid to refer journalists and editors for contempt over Antoinette Lattouf case Hannah McGuire murder: ex-partner Lachlan Young pleads guilty to murder eight days into trial Pilot David Stephens could not have survived plane crash in remote NSW Snowy Mountains, police say Skydive pioneer Felix Baumgartner, who jumped from edge of space, dies in paragliding accident From microscopic images inside a human kidney to self-portraits of enduring epilepsy and endometriosis, this year's selection for the Wellcome photography prize 2025 is as moving as it is dazzling. 'They can look like little blobs of dirt, but it's the big neck that gives them away. I'm pretty chuffed. It's crazy.' The Kangaroo Island assassin spider was feared extinct after bushfires swept across the west of the island in the black summer of 2019 and 2020. Scientists were the only ones to find surviving specimens, at least until the discovery last week, not by a scientist, but an enthusiastic 17-year-old volunteer called Jack Wilson who was filling his time during school holidays. Sign up to Afternoon Update Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Host Stephen Colbert, who took over presenting the talkshow in 2015 from David Letterman, announced the news during Thursday night's taping. CBS said the cancellation after 33 years on the network was 'purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night'. 'It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,' it added. Eureka moments, just like the one Archimedes had, don't usually happen when you're trying: they happen when you're not. There's a scientific name for this wandering mind magic: the Default Mode Network (DMN) and one of its greatest allies? Boredom. So why can't we stop bringing our phones into the bathroom? Today's starter word is: BONE. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply. If you would like to receive this Afternoon Update to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here, or start your day with a curated breakdown of the key stories you need to know with our Morning Mail newsletter. You can follow the latest in US politics by signing up for This Week in Trumpland.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Trump says he'll sue over report of his bawdy birthday card to Epstein: ‘the letter was a FAKE'
President Donald Trump announced plans to sue the Wall Street Journal after the paper published a bombshell report detailing an alleged bawdy birthday card Trump gave to Jeffrey Epstein. The Journal described a card that appeared to be signed by Trump for the disgraced financier's 50th birthday. Inside the outline of a s ketch of a naked woman, typed text reads: 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.' Trump denied having anything to do with the card. 'I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women,' he told the outlet. 'It's not my language. It's not my words.' He also threatened to sue the Journal if the story was published — a threat he now vowed to act on. In a Truth Social Post Thursday night, the president said he plans to sue The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, and Rupert Murdoch 'shortly.' 'The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued,' the president wrote. 'Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so. The Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker, was told directly by Karoline Leavitt, and by President Trump, that the letter was a FAKE, but Emma Tucker didn't want to hear that. Instead, they are going with a false, malicious, and defamatory story anyway,' the post continued. He then several lawsuits he filed against the press, including ABC and CBS, which were settled. 'President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos/ABC, 60 Minutes/CBS, and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal,' he wrote. 'It has truly turned out to be a 'Disgusting and Filthy Rag' and, writing defamatory lies like this, shows their desperation to remain relevant.'
