Donald Trump and long-time friend media mogul Rupert Murdoch have weekly chats about strategy according to sources close to both of them.
Mr Murdoch chairs NewsCorp, the parent company of the tabloid New York Post and conservative news outlets Fox News and Heat Street, and is said to be close to Mr Trump.
Decades earlier the New York Post “made” Mr Trump. He went from a local real estate developer to a multi-millionaire gossip column staple in the 1980s largely due to the paper.
As for television, the Fox News Channel was loyal to Mr Trump’s candidacy throughout the 2016 campaign, as well as hosting pundits who called other news coverage of the bombastic candidate as “fake news”.
Mr Trump even supported erstwhile Fox News host Bill O’Reilly who left the network following accusations of sexual harassment made against him. Mr O’Reilly denies all the allegations.
“I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,” said Mr Trump, who thought Mr O’Reilly should have fought back against the allegations instead of leaving the network.
Mr O’Reilly was a vocal supporter of the president.
Mr Murdoch and Mr Trump discuss “strategy” on their weekly calls, said sources close to both men.
He also called White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer after a press conference during which Mr Spicer erroneously said Hitler did not use chemical weapons during the Second World War and also referred to concentration camps where millions of Jews were gassed as “Holocaust centers.”
Mr Spicer profusely apologised for the mistakes in subsequent interviews.
The New York Times reported that the relationship between Mr Trump and “Mr. Murdoch is deeper and more enduring than most in [Mr Trump’s] life, and the two commiserate”.
