Report: Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch predicts landslide election win for Joe Biden
News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said recently the American public is ready to elect Joe Biden and that the Democratic presidential nominee could win in a “landslide,” according to a report Thursday from The Daily Beast.
The Australian-born media mogul, who owns Fox News and the New York Post as well as the Wall Street Journal, allegedly told business associates he thinks the commotion of the last four years under Trump will encourage a huge win for Biden, who appears a more stable candidate.
Murdoch suggested to at least three Daily Beast sources that Trump has handled the coronavirus pandemic poorly and ignored advice on how to better manage it, which has created a continuous crisis for his administration.
“After all that has gone on, people are ready for Sleepy Joe,” Murdoch reportedly told an associate.
The Daily Beast sent an email to Murdoch asking about his position on the presidential campaign and Murdoch responded, “No comment except I’ve never called Trump an idiot,” in reference to a claim Murdoch once described the president after a discussion on immigration in 2016.
Amount of pushback on this story from the famously aggressive Murdoch PR machine: zero. https://t.co/SPNAGOUR0B
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) October 15, 2020
Murdoch, 89, also reportedly has not spoken to Trump in “several weeks,” and insiders said he “grew tired” of Trump’s complaining about stories about himself on Fox News he perceived as negative.
Bret Gibson is a TribLive digital producer. A South Hills resident, he started working for the Trib in 1998. He can be reached at bgibson@triblive.com.
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