Former President Donald Trump, a prominent figure in conservative America, keeps saying he thinks the 2020 election was rigged. Rupert Murdoch, another conservative power player, thinks Trump should give it up.
“The current American political debate is profound, whether about education or welfare or economic opportunity,” said Murdoch, whose family controls Fox Corp., the parent company of conservative media outlet Fox News.
“It is crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in that debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past.”
Murdoch, a 90-year-old billionaire, made the comments Wednesday during News Corp’s annual shareholder meeting, according to The Washington Post.
“The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future,” Murdoch added.
Trump began making voter fraud claims before the 2020 election results came in and continued to promote the claims this week in a statement about Mick Bricker, a Republican running for a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives.
“He’s a champion on Election Integrity, he knows there was systemic voter fraud in the 2020 Election, and he can’t wait to expose the fraud so that the criminals involved can be exposed and we can fix our Elections so that this never happens again,” said Trump, according to the Holland Sentinel.
Even before Trump began making allegations about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election – of which there has been no evidence – he seemed to rub Murdoch the wrong way.
According to The Washington Post, Murdoch “was seemingly not thrilled by the idea of a Trump presidency,” and in a 2015 tweet said “When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country?”
Murdoch’s tone changed by the time Trump was elected in 2016. For example, the editorial board of the New York Post a tabloid controlled by Murdoch, was among to endorse Trump as a candidate in the 2016 election.
Though Murdoch referred to Trump as a “friend” the following year, Michael Wolff’s 2018 book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” said Murdoch also had called Trump a “f---ing idiot.”
During the 2020 election, Fox News ended up calling Arizona, a traditionally conservative state, for Biden. It turned out to be the correct call, but it upset Trump.
When Trump eventually lost the 2020 election to current President Joe Biden, the New York Post aimed a blistering editorial at the former commander-in-chief. In line with Murdoch’s statements this week, that editorial said Trump should stop claiming voter fraud and move on.
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