- Jared Kushner said he stopped Donald Trump from attacking Rupert Murdoch after he criticized him in 2015.
- Kushner claims he later convinced a skeptical Murdoch to back Trump, according to his forthcoming memoir.
- Murdoch-owned Fox News played a crucial role in fueling Trump’s political rise.
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Jared Kushner said he intervened to prevent Donald Trump from attacking media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 2015, according to his forthcoming memoir.
In “Breaking History,” a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian, Kusher said his father-in-law was enraged by Murdoch’s criticism of him while running in the Republican primary.
“Trump called me. He had clearly had enough. ‘This guy is no good. And I’m going to tweet it,'” Kushner writes in the book, according to the paper.
“‘Please, you’re in a Republican primary,’ I said, hoping he wasn’t about to post a negative tweet aimed at the most powerful man in conservative media. “You don’t need to get on the wrong side of Rupert. Give me a couple of hours to fix it.”
In his book, Kushner claims he convinced a skeptical Murdoch to support his father-in-law, The Guardian reports, in what eventually became a pivotal relationship.
Murdoch-owned Fox News played a major role in fueling Trump’s rise from businessman and reality TV star to president.
When Trump first entered politics in 2015, Murdoch was openly critical of him, once tweeting: “When will he stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the entire country?”
Kushner writes that he visited the media mogul in July 2015 after Trump was angered by a New York Times story about Murdoch’s poor view of him.
“’Rupert, I think I could win,’ I said as we sat in his office. “You agree on many issues. You want smaller government. You want lower taxes. You want stronger borders,” Kushner writes. .
Kushner said Murdoch seemed surprised that Trump was serious about running and called the next day to tell Kushner that he might have been “misjudging” the situation.
“I looked at that, and maybe I was misjudging it. He actually has a real following. He seems like he’s very popular like he can really be a kingpin in the Republican primary with the way he’s playing.” Murdoch told Kushner, according to the book.
After convincing Murdoch that Trump wanted to be president, Kushner says they reached “a truce, for now.”
Tucker Carlson, Fox News anchor. Fox News
Despite ongoing reports of tension between the two men over the years, Fox News continued to support Trump throughout his tenure.
However, the relationship became strained when Fox News became the first major news outlet to call Arizona for Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
It has previously been reported that Kushner called Murdoch on election night to question the move, and that the media mogul told him the numbers were “robust”.
Since his 2020 election defeat, which Trump continues to deny, Fox News began to distance itself from him, often bypassing his coverage in favor of other Republicans.
Kushner’s memoir, which chronicles his time as Trump’s top adviser during his presidency, will be published on August 23.