The Wall Street Journal, its parent company and Rupert Murdoch asked a federal judge to dismiss Donald Trump‘s $10 billion defamation lawsuit over the publication’s report on the president’s past connections to Jeffrey Epstein.
“The First Amendment’s protections for truthful speech are the backbone of the Constitution,” the Journal’s attorneys wrote in their motion.
The attorneys also challenged the notion the that the article could have damaged Trump’s reputation, noting that he had “publicly admitted to ‘locker room talk’ and has made numerous bawdy public statements,” as well as to his relationship with Epstein.
I’m curious as to what Rupert Murdoch’s end game is here. Given he supported Trump’s rise, he must have some vested interest in keeping that going, what does he hope to achieve by pulling the Epstein thread? Is it just that he sees more ad revenue from news and print that talks about Epstein and Trump’s relationship and collaboration? Surely he has a longer plan than short term revenue?
A little reminder to Trump that Murdoch is a king maker. Murdoch wants to keep people on the edge of power, flipped this way or that at Murdoch’s wim.
But also, murdoch shaped the dialog about what this picture depicted before anyone had seen it. Everyone is now describing it as a women instead of what it appears to be… a child.
He’s taking trump to the edge. But also preventing him going over. This is not quite as unfriendly as it would appear.
That’s a great point about shaping the dialog
Yeah wasn’t the nauseating pun / gag really that Trump was saying that Jeffrey and him were “breast buds”?
It took me a long time to get that because it’s fucking disgusting and nobody covered it that way.
Money. Untold amounts of money for selling sensationalism as a product. He’s always played both sides and benefits. For example, he invested $120mil into Theranos while at the same time WSJ was investigating them for fraud.