Murdoch’s New York Post Blasts President’s Fraud Claims

 

Murdoch’s New York Post Blasts President’s Fraud Claims

 

With a scathing front-page editorial, the Trump-friendly tabloid joined another of Rupert Murdoch’s papers, The Wall Street Journal, in attacking the president’s attempts to undo the election result.

 

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post put more distance between itself and President Trump with a blistering front-page editorial on Monday.

 

Marc Tracy

By Marc Tracy

Dec. 28, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/business/media/new-york-post-trump-editorial.html

 

“Give it up, Mr. President — for your sake and the nation’s.”

 

In a blunt editorial, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, a tabloid that promoted Donald J. Trump long before he went into politics, told the president to end his attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.

 

The Monday front page showed a downcast president and the all-caps headline “Stop the Insanity.” The publication’s website also featured the editorial, written by The Post’s editorial board, at the top of the home page.

 

“Mr. President, it’s time to end this dark charade,” began the editorial.

 

It blasted Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the House and Senate try to disrupt the tallying of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6. It also ridiculed Sidney Powell, a former lawyer for the Trump campaign who pushed conspiracy theories about a Venezuelan plot to rig voting machines in the United States. And it said a suggestion by Michael T. Flynn, the former lieutenant general who served as Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, to impose martial law was “tantamount to treason.”

 

“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post editorial said.

 

“In other words,” it continued, “you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”

 

The Post helped make Mr. Trump a New York celebrity decades ago, and it was an early backer of his political ambitions, endorsing him in the Republican primary race ahead of the 2016 election.

 

Numerous inquiries. Since Donald J. Trump left office, the former president has been facing civil and criminal investigations across the country into his business dealings and political activities. Here is a look at the notable inquiries:

 

Jan. 6 inquiries. A House select committee and federal prosecutors are investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and examining the possible culpability of a broad range of figures — including Mr. Trump and his allies — involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In a series of public hearings this summer, the committee laid out evidence that could allow prosecutors to indict Mr. Trump.

 

Georgia criminal inquiry. Mr. Trump himself is under scrutiny in Georgia, where the district attorney of Fulton County has been investigating whether he and others criminally interfered with the 2020 election results in the state. Several allies of the former president have been subpoenaed, and prosecutors have informed some state officials and Trump supporters that they could face charges.

 

White House documents investigation. The Justice Department has begun a grand jury investigation into the handling of classified materials that ended up at Mr. Trump’s Florida home. The investigation is focused on the discovery by the National Archives that Mr. Trump had taken 15 boxes of documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago when he left office.

 

Manhattan criminal case. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business, the Trump Organization, intentionally submitted false property values to potential lenders. But new signs have emerged that the inquiry may be losing steam.

 

New York State civil inquiry. The New York attorney general’s office has been assisting with the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation while conducting its own civil inquiry into some of the same conduct. The civil inquiry is focused on whether Mr. Trump’s statements about the value of his assets were part of a pattern of fraud or were simply Trumpian showmanship.

 

Trump’s social media merger. A federal grand jury in Manhattan has issued subpoenas regarding the merger of Mr. Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, with Digital World Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Federal authorities are also investigating a surge in trading that preceded the announcement of the $300 million deal.

 

Westchester County criminal investigation. The district attorney’s office in Westchester County, N.Y., appears to be focused at least in part on whether the Trump Organization misled local officials about the value of a golf course, Trump National Golf Club Westchester, to reduce its taxes.

 

In January 2019, as Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign was underway, the paper brought back its former longtime editor in chief, Col Allan, an Australian tabloid wizard who was once seen wearing a Make America Great Again cap in the newsroom. Mr. Allan, in the role of newsroom adviser, helped shape the paper’s election coverage, and The Post’s editorial board gave Mr. Trump its endorsement in a front-page editorial on Oct. 26 headlined “Make America Great Again, Again.”

 

Since Election Day, however, The Post’s tone has changed.

 

In an interview with The New York Times shortly after Joseph R. Biden Jr. emerged as the winner of the presidential election, Mr. Allan said he was calling an end to his four-decade career at Murdoch papers in the United States and Australia. And on Nov. 7, The Post’s editorial board published some tough-love advice to Mr. Trump: “President Trump, your legacy is secure — stop the ‘stolen election’ rhetoric.”

 

The conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, another paper controlled by Mr. Murdoch’s News Corp, has taken a similar line. “President Trump accomplished a great deal in four years, but as he leaves office he can’t seem to help reminding Americans why they denied him a second term,” began a Dec. 20 editorial headlined “Trump’s Bad Exit.”

 

It concluded: “Mr. Trump doesn’t want to admit he lost, and he can duck the inauguration if he likes. But his sore loser routine is beginning to grate even on millions who voted for him.”

 

Television personalities in the Murdoch media empire have also changed their tune.

 

Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs, of Fox Business, and Jeanine Pirro, of Fox News, seemed to back attempts by the president and his acolytes to undo the election results — until recently. This month, the programs hosted by the three anchors included three-minute segments intended to debunk on-air claims that the 2020 vote had been rigged. The segments ran after Antonio Mugica, the head of the election technology company Smartmatic, threatened legal action against media companies that had broadcast statements suggesting that the company had a role in the vote fraud.

 

In its front-page attack on Monday, The Post’s editorial board, run by its longtime editor, Mark Q. Cunningham, appealed directly to Mr. Trump.

 

“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” it said. “But to continue down this road is ruinous.”

 

“Democrats will try to write you off as a one-term aberration and, frankly, you’re helping them do it,” the editorial continued. “The King Lear of Mar-a-Lago, ranting about the corruption of the world.”

 

In conclusion, it said: “If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered. Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist holding the match.”

 

Marc Tracy covers print and digital media. He previously covered college sports. @marcatracy