The political media world was thrown into chaos Thursday night when the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell story about a birthday letter Donald Trump apparently wrote to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, prompting the president to sue the publication and Rupert Murdoch, the paper’s owner and founder of Fox News.
On Friday, the president filed a libel lawsuit against the right-wing media mogul and The Wall Street Journal’s parent companies, News Corp and Dow Jones, following the newspaper’s publication of Trump’s alleged birthday letter to Epstein.
However, regular consumers of Fox News may be oblivious to this blockbuster report – that sparked outcry from MAGA supporters and seemingly prompted the president to ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to release “pertinent” grand jury testimony in the Epstein case – because the conservative cable giant has avoided mention of it.
At the time of publication, based on a review of transcripts of Fox News’ on-air coverage since the WSJ published the story, the network only once briefly hinted at the report on the president’s alleged “bawdy” card to Epstein in 2003. And in that instance, the host never delivered the promised segment about the story.
Midway through her program on Thursday evening, Laura Ingraham groused that “Democrats pretend to care about an issue that has the podcast world going crazy” before noting that they’re “asking for transparency.” At that point, she teased that “we have new news coming on about this as well from The Wall Street Journal, a new report tonight.”
However on returning from her commercial break, Ingraham only focused on criticizing Democrats for becoming fixated on Epstein and the Trump administration’s memo earlier this month, which had concluded that the disgraced financier kept no “client list” of high-profile figures and died by suicide.
In the end, there was no “new news” about the WSJ story – and that has been the case in the Fox News universe since.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On the network’s digital site, the only two Epstein-related stories that have been published since Thursday evening are both on Trump’s directive to Bondi to work on releasing some portions of the Epstein grand jury transcripts. Both articles sidestep any mentions about the WSJ’s eye-popping story.
In the past 24 hours, the network’s hosts and commentators have occasionally discussed the Epstein saga, but only to either boast of how a recent poll found that Trump is still massively popular with Republicans, despite the turmoil in MAGA world over the Epstein memo, or to report on the president’s promise to release “pertinent” grand jury testimony in the case.
“Donald Trump won seven swing states and the popular vote. His approval rating went up significantly in spite of the Epstein scandal talk going on and people anticipated his numbers would go down,” host and Trump confidant Sean Hannity declared on Friday morning’s broadcast of Fox & Friends, the president’s favorite morning show. It would be the only mention of Epstein during the entire three hours of the program.
White House correspondent Peter Doocy would briefly point out during his on-air dispatches Friday that Trump had made a “public call” for Bondi to move to release grand jury testimony, adding that the Justice Department’s next step would be to assign a judge in New York to review the transcripts.
Shannon Bream, the network’s chief legal correspondent, also appeared for a segment to discuss the legal procedures required for the publication of grand jury testimony.
.jpg)
The lack of Fox News coverage on a sister publication’s big scoop probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering the symbiotic relationship Fox News has with Trump and how the channel’s programming has largely been tailored not to anger him.
With the president declaring war on Fox News’ owner, it was basically a given that the story would be ignored on the network’s airwaves.
“I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his ‘pile of garbage’ newspaper,” Trump blared on Truth Social Friday. “That will be an interesting experience!!!”
Rather than tempt fate and further inflame the president and his top loyalists by placing their anchors and pundits in the awkward position of defending the WSJ and their boss amid the MAGA pile-on, it appears the network has erred on the side of caution and won’t touch it – at least for the time being.
Of course, that’s essentially been the network’s modus operandi since the Epstein controversy blew up early last week, and particularly after the president first ordered his supporters to “stop talking about” the deceased sex offender last weekend. The Monday after Trump's Truth Social tirade, the network only mentioned Epstein eight times on its airwaves.
The network’s avoidance of the Epstein saga has even led other right-wing outlets and personalities to mock Fox News for being “terrified” of covering the story because they “don’t want to p*** off” Trump.
Still, there are some Murdoch employees who are willing to bring up the WSJ story. Riley Gaines, the culture warrior who hosts a podcast for Murdoch-owned Outkick and regularly appears on Fox News, backed Trump’s legal threats against the newspaper and her boss. “Sue them into oblivion,” she tweeted Thursday night.
