Tag: rupert murdoch
Paul Ryan

Ex-Speaker Ryan: Trump 'Betrayed His Oath' And Is 'Unfit For Office'

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) told Fox News on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump is unsuitable for another term in office — and that he believes the former president isn't loyal to upholding the Constitution.

"I voted for him in 2016, hoping that there was going to be a different kind of person in office," Ryan told host Neil Cavuto. "And I do think character is a really important issue. If you put yourself above the Constitution, as he has done, I think that makes you unfit for office."

"But what happened?" asked Cavuto. "What turned you off? Was it the whole January 6 thing?"

"That's a part of it, I think it's a contribution of factors," said Ryan. "But I think it really is his character at the end of the day, and the fact that if you're willing to put yourself above the Constitution, an oath you swear when you take office, federal office, whether there's president or a member of Congress, you swear an oath to the Constitution. And if you're willing to suborn it to yourself, I think that makes you unfit for office."

This comes as Ryan, who helped Trump pass his signature tax cut legislation in 2017, has gradually become more outspoken against him, calling him an "authoritarian" and a "narcissist." Ryan has also said he cannot vote for Trump this year, which has caused the former president to rage against the former speaker on social media.

In one such rant last month, Trump proclaimed: "Rupert Murdoch should fire pathetic RINO Paul Ryan from the Board of Fox. Ryan is a loser, always has been, and always will be. He was the WEAKEST & MOST INCOMPETENT Speaker of the House in its History. Fox will sink to the absolute bottom of the pack if Paul Ryan has anything to do with it!"

Watch the video below or at the link here.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Rupert Murdoch

Why Prince Harry May Force Rupert Murdoch To Testify

With a net worth of nearly $20 billion, far-right media mogul Rupert Murdoch has deep enough pockets to settle with virtually any litigant — except one. And a failure to settle in this particular case could result in the 93-year-old being forced to testify under oath.

The Daily Beast recently reported that Prince Harry — also known as the Duke of Sussex — is still proceeding with his lawsuit against Murdoch over his alleged knowledge of a hacking and cover-up scandal involving News Group Newspapers (NGN), which is Murdoch's family of UK-based tabloids. Harry has so far refused to settle with Murdoch, meaning the suit could lead to a potentially humiliating public trial for Murdoch should plaintiffs prove he knew about illegal hacking practices.

"If true, these allegations would establish very serious, deliberate wrongdoing at NGN, conducted on an institutional basis on a large scale," presiding judge Mr. Justice Fancourt (the stylized title of English High Court judge Sir Timothy Fancourt) said. He added that proceedings could "establish a concerted effort to conceal wrongdoing."

Beast correspondent Clive Irving reported last year on the depth of the cover-up at former NGN publication News of the World, which Harry's lawyers uncovered during the discovery process. The Duke of Sussex's attorneys found that "[NGN] executives had wiped a trail of emails, destroyed hard drives and removed many boxes full of documents" relating to the hacking scandal.

The same lawyers representing Prince Harry in the suit also represented actor Hugh Grant, who, unlike Harry, settled out of court for what he referred to as an "enormous sum" with NGN. He emphasized that he "would love to see all the allegations they deny tested in court." However, he added that "the rules around civil litigation mean that if I proceed to trial and the court awards me damages that are even a penny less than the settlement offer I would have to pay the legal costs of both sides."

"Rupert Murdoch’s lawyers are very expensive," Grant said. "So even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for something approaching £10 million in costs. I’m afraid I am shying at that fence."

Harry's refusal to settle with Murdoch's tabloid empire could be a deliberate attempt to force the media mogul to testify, as the British royal has previously agreed to settle other lawsuits with publications involved in the hacking scandal. The Associated Press (AP) reported in February that Prince Harry settled with Mirror Group Newspapers over its own hacking practices.

"Phone hacking by British newspapers dates back more than two decades to a time when scoop-hungry journalists regularly phoned the numbers of royals, celebrities, politicians and sports stars and, when prompted to leave a message, punched in default passcodes to eavesdrop on voicemails," the AP explained. "The practice erupted into a full-blown scandal in 2011 when Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World was revealed to have intercepted messages of a murdered girl, relatives of dead soldiers and victims of a bombing. Murdoch closed the paper, and a former News of the World editor was jailed."

Prince Harry's lawsuit may not be the only one that results in a public trial with Murdoch on the witness stand. Earlier this year, a judge allowed voting software company Smartmatic's $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News to proceed, which is now in the discovery process. While Fox News was able to settle with Dominion Voting Systems last year for $787 million, Smartmatic attorney Erik Connolly said in 2023 he is "looking to take this case through trial" and that his clients want "the vindication of a jury verdict in their favor."

"We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025," a Fox News spokesperson said last year.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch Retires, But His Destructive Legacy Remains

During Rupert Murdoch’s 25-year tenure as the head of Fox News Channel, he created a right-wing misinformation machine, subsidized by cable customers, that played an essential role in former President Donald Trump’s rise to power and subsequent attempts to stay in power by stealing the 2020 election. The network has divided not just Americans, but also their families, with the anger and bigotry stoked by Fox destroying relationships among loved ones.

Rupert Murdoch announced he was stepping down after over 25 years at the helm of Fox Corp.

  • Rupert Murdoch announced in September that he would step down as the chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp. in November, leaving his son Lachlan Murdoch as chairman and CEO. Rupert Murdoch launched the Fox News cable channel with political strategist Roger Ailes in 1996, creating a hallmark for conservative TV commentary. [The Associated Press, 9/21/23; The New York Times, 9/21/23]

During his tenure, Murdoch created a right-wing misinformation machine that helped bring Trump to power and supported his lies

  • Rupert Murdoch amassed a fortune by building Fox News into a right-wing misinformation machine that played an essential role in the rise of former President Donald Trump and his deadly attempts to steal the 2020 election. As Media Matters senior fellow Matt Gertz wrote, “The network’s noxious mix of right-wing propaganda, bigotry, lies and demagoguery attracted the largest audience in cable news while shaping the Republican Party’s base in its image.” [Media Matters, 1/6/21; MSNBC, 9/21/23]
  • Murdoch admitted that he let Fox News personalities push election conspiracy theories, despite knowing that they were bogus. Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against the network revealed that even though Rupert Murdoch thought Fox was “uniquely positioned to state the message that the election was not stolen,” he agreed the profit motive was the deciding factor: “It is not red or blue, it is green.” [Media Matters, 2/27/23]
  • The network also pumped coronavirus conspiracy theories out of its airwaves as the country struggled to respond to a deadly pandemic. In just 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the network promoted COVID-19 misinformation over 13,000 times on its weekday programs. [Media Matters, 12/30/20, 12/30/20]

Fox has divided the country, including many family relationships

  • Writer Megan Garber explained in The Atlantic in 2020 that Fox had developed its own language, and that “at this point, some Americans speak English; others speak Fox.” She added: “The result is disorientation. The result is mass suspicion. … Fox has helped to create a nation of people who share everything but the ability to talk with one another.” [The Atlantic, 9/16/20]
  • Journalist Luke O’Neil collected stories, including his own, of “families torn apart by toxic cable news” and published them in The Guardian and New York magazine. [The Guardian, 4/12/19; New York magazine, 4/9/19]
  • One person told O’Neil: “I hate what Fox News has done to almost everyone in my family. It’s absolute poison and the only thing I think is worse is that there are people who think that destroying the morals and conscience of multiple generations is worth a few more bucks. I absolutely refuse to believe that people like [Fox host Sean] Hannity don’t know what they are doing.”
  • Another person told O’Neil: “I called at Thanksgiving to say hi, which was when my dad called Obama the N-word during the call, apropos of nothing.” They lamented that they “pretty much don’t go home any more” because their “family and friends all have broken Fox brain,” adding, “I’m not totally sure when it started since I haven’t lived at home since 2002. It slowly built, but the rift probably started around 2008, when I was volunteering for Obama. It got the most heated when my mom went to a Trump rally in Phoenix ahead of the 2016 election.”
  • O’Neil: “Dozens … talked about the sad lonely twilight of their parents’ or grandparents’ lives, having been spurned by, or having disowned much of their families over political disagreements.” O’Neil wrote: “Whatever the actual direction of causality, there are many, many Americans who blame Fox News for changes in their loved ones, and many people out there who feel as though their friends and family members have been lost to a 24/7 stream of right-wing propaganda.”
  • Edward Lyngar in Salon: “We’re losing people like my father to the despair of Fox News, and it’s all by design.” Lyngar wrote that his father “is a kind and generous man and a good father, but over the past five or 10 years, he’s become so conservative that I can’t even find a label for it. What has changed? He consumes a daily diet of nothing except Fox News.” [Salon, 2/27/14]
  • A Boston Globe article recounted documentary filmmaker Jen Senko’s story of her dad’s Fox-induced “descent into anger.” Senko told the Globe: “He became a person we hated being around and we didn’t know. … It was a really horrible period of time for us. … It was a nightmare, both my brothers blocked him, I blocked him.” According to the report, “Senko’s stomach clenched every time she thought of visiting. Her dad was angry all the time. And Senko knew exactly what was to blame: The steady drip-feed of outrage he listened to every day.” [The Boston Globe, 5/1/19]

Cable customers are subsidizing Fox’s misinformation, with some objecting because of how it has harmed their families

  • Cable companies' customers are being forced to subsidize Fox’s lies. Cable companies pay channels' “carriage fees” to carry their channel, and Fox charges a higher amount than all other networks aside from EPSN, which is then passed on to customers. “These carriage fees are now so valuable to Fox that reporting from Media Matters has found that Fox would still have a profit margin of more than 35% even if it sold no advertising,” The Guardian wrote. [The Guardian, 8/15/23]
  • Over 165,000 individuals have signed the #NoFoxFee campaign, demanding that their cable providers stop forcing consumers to subsidize Fox News’ lies. Some of them have also left public notes on how consuming Fox News has changed their families. [Common Cause, accessed 11/16/23]
  • A #NoFoxFee petition signer wrote that her brother and sister-in-law have “totally bought into the lies and misinformation” they see on Fox. The signer added: “We can no longer talk about current events” and that their relatives think “all other news sources were lying to them” as a result of watching Fox News, saying that makes them feel “very estranged from them.”
  • Another signer wrote: “I no longer have relationships with my mother or sisters because they have become radicalized to become fascist sympathizers by their viewing of cable Fox ‘News.’”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Charlie Kirk

Rupert Murdoch, Charlie Kirk And Gen Z's Rejection Of The Far Right

Rupert Murdoch announced on September 21 that he will be stepping down as chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp. after a 70-year career poisoning global media with right-wing lies and hate. Fox is now in the hands of Lachlan Murdoch, whose track record at the company indicates he is even more grimly ideological than his father, serving as the main force backing Tucker Carlson’s on-air white supremacy and pushing the network to support Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies despite their financial consequences.

While Rupert Murdoch repeatedly made clear in his announcement that he does not intend to take his thumb entirely off the scale of his outlets, the question of who will now rise to prominence in the right-wing media ecosystem lingers. In just the last few years, the movement’s founding fathers, including Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, and Rush Limbaugh, have died or stepped away, leaving conservative media without a center of gravity. Lachlan Murdoch and other rising right-wing media figures are jockeying to lead the hate and misinformation machine into the next generation.

One of these figures is Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk.

Since first appearing on the scene in 2012, when he had just barely graduated from high school, Kirk has built TPUSA into a reported $80 million media empire. The organization hosts numerous shows and has millions of followers across multiple social media platforms. Kirk himself is a Salem Radio host whose nationally syndicated program is broadcast in Limbaugh’s old time slot.

TPUSA is purportedly an organization representing the next generation of conservative activists, with Kirk as their leading voice. But there is scant evidence that the group has a genuine connection with Gen Z, whose social and political attitudes are overwhelmingly liberal. An October 2021 internal presentation obtained by The Verge stated that only 15 percent of Turning Point’s Instagram audience is actually student-aged. As the organization’s own documentation states: “The content that is going out right now is completely missing our target audience.” (TPUSA told The Verge that “the presentations in question contain multiple inaccuracies and erroneous data.”)

As the original shapers of right-wing media fade into history, Kirk seemingly hopes to capture the attention of the next generation and raise his own profile in the conservative movement by leaning into increasingly hardcore far-right positions. On the very same day that Murdoch announced he was stepping down, Kirk took to his radio show and launched into a vile, racist attack on migrants on the southern border, declaring that a “foreign invasion” of “fighting-age young males who will end up raping many of your daughters.”

He also specifically invoked and validated the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory.

“Obviously the Democrat Party supports this because of power,” Kirk declared. “They smear us and slander us when we bring up the great replacement. The Castro brothers themselves have said that was the reason.”

“You should be at fever-pitch anger,” he concluded.

Kirk is only reflecting the lasting influence of Tucker Carlson, who brought the great replacement conspiracy theory to mainstream conservative audiences with the full backing of Lachlan Murdoch, who is now the sole chair of his family’s global media empire.

But the Charlie Kirk of today would be unrecognizable to who he was yesterday. In his comprehensive history of the first 10 years of TPUSA, University of North Georgia rhetoric professor Matthew Boedy notes that as the organization has grown, Kirk has expressed increasingly extreme views, including on the topic of immigration.

In 2019, Kirk came under attack by the white nationalist “groyper” movement after he stated that “highly-educated immigrants should get ‘a green card’ stapled to their U.S. college diplomas.” This kicked off the so-called “groyper wars” in which followers of neo-Nazi Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes repeatedly confronted Kirk with racist and antisemitic dog whistles while he was on a speaking tour. Kirk ultimately penned an apologia on American Greatness, the same far-right blog that had launched the initial criticism.

Just recently, Fuentes bragged that his followers had infiltrated Turning Point USA and his one-time target had now adopted his messaging.

“I think in 2023, Charlie Kirk, all these others, they sound way more like me, today, than they sound like themselves four years ago,” Fuentes said, before launching into an attack on Jewish people.

Kirk has also radicalized significantly against LGBTQ people.

In 2019, he posted a video of an exchange with an audience member labeled “CHARLIE KIRK TAKES DOWN ANTI-GAY EXTREMIST.” In the video, the audience member condemned Kirk for accepting gay people in the conservative movement. Kirk defended himself and gay conservatives, asking, “What does what they do in their private life concern you so much?” and adding that if you do not embrace and love all people as Jesus did, “then you, sir, are not a conservative.”

As Boedy points out, a TPUSA chapter guide from 2017 specifically instructs participants: “no talk about abortion, gay marriage, etc.”

Since then, Kirk has become one of the most extreme voices singling out LGBTQ people for violence across the right-wing media.

  • In August, Kirk said that trans people who join fraternities and sororities should “be made fun of so much, bullied so much, crying so much, they would get themselves out.”
  • Kirk has referred to trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney with an anti-trans slur on multiple occasions.
  • Kirk called LGBTQ identification a “social contagion.”
  • During 2023’s Pride Month, Kirk vowed to remember “all the gay flag stuff” at Starbucks after several stores caved to right-wing pressure to take down Pride decorations.
  • On the first day of Pride Month, Kirk tweeted, “Pride is a sin.”
  • Kirk has argued that “monogamous heterosexual marriage should be a prerequisite to adoption.”
  • In 2022, Kirk warned that gay people “are not happy just having marriage. Instead, they now want to corrupt your children.”

But perhaps Kirk’s biggest transformation has been on the role of religion.

Boedy tracks this transformation masterfully. As TPUSA was getting off the ground, Kirk criticized the conservative movement of decades past for evangelizing too much, claimed to promote right-wing values “through a secular worldview,” and once told an audience that “he saw his job as the face of TPUSA as ‘no different than’ being a plumber or electrician, who likely don’t tell everyone they met about their religion.”

In 2021, Kirk launched the TPUSA Faith initiative, which he has used as a platform to increasingly lean into Christian nationalism. Since then, TPUSA Faith launched Freedom Life Church, a network of TPUSA-aligned congregations with the expressed goal “to change the trajectory of our nation by restoring America's biblical values.”

In 2022, he declared, “There is no separation of church and state.”

Kirk has also falsely claimed that the Founding Fathers based our system of government on the Book of Genesis, and speaks of the country as engaged in a “spiritual battle.”

The Murdochs and Fox News are also directly responsible for helping Kirk launch his career. As TPUSA was just getting off the ground, Kirk started becoming a semi-regular guest on Fox News as the youthful face of opposing the Obama presidency, often hosted by Neil Cavuto. Kirk has appeared at least 235 times on weekday Fox shows since 2018, though his last appearance was May 18, 2023, having since seemingly been blacklisted from the network.

Like the rest of us, Charlie Kirk is getting older, but high school and college students are staying the same age. Conservative media across the board face an uphill battle if they want to win over Gen Z. So far, Kirk’s strategic approach to inheriting the house that Rupert (and Rush) built has been to amplify the extremist fringes.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Shop our Store

Headlines

Editor's Blog

Corona Virus

Trending

World