- Jared Kushner said he stopped Donald Trump from attacking Rupert Murdoch after he criticized him in 2015.
- Kushner claims he then convinced a skeptical Murdoch to support Trump, according to his upcoming memoir.
- Murdoch-owned Fox News went on to play a crucial role in boosting Trump’s political rise.
Jared Kushner said that he intervened to stop 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 criticisms of him while he was running for the Republican primary.
“Trump called me. He’d clearly had enough. ‘This guy’s no good. And I’m going to tweet it,'” Kushner writes in the book, per 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 that he convinced a skeptical Murdoch to support his father-in-law, The Guardian reports, which ultimately became a pivotal relationship.
Murdoch-owned Fox News went on to play a significant role in boosting Trump’s ascension from businessman and reality TV star to president.
When Trump first entered politics in 2015, Murdoch was openly critical of him, once tweeting: “When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country?”
Kushner writes that he visited the media mogul in July 2015 after Trump became enraged by a New York Times story about Murdoch’s dim view of him.
“‘Rupert, I think he could win,’ I said as we sat in his office. ‘You guys agree on a lot of the issues. You want smaller government. You want lower taxes. You want stronger borders,'” Kushner writes .
Kushner said Murdoch appeared to be surprised that Trump was serious about running and the next day called to tell Kushner he might have been “misjudging” the situation.
“I’ve looked at this, and maybe I was misjudging it. He actually does have a real following. It does seem like he’s very popular like he can really be a kingmaker in the Republican primary with the way he is playing it,” Murdoch told Kushner, according to the book.
After convincing Murdoch that Trump wanted to be president, Kushner says they came to “a truth, for the time being.”
Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
foxnews
Despite ongoing reports about tension between the two men over the years, Fox News continued to be supportive of Trump during his term.
However, the relationship became fraught 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 “ironclad.”
Since his 2020 election loss, which Trump continues to deny, Fox News began distancing itself from him, often bypassing his coverage in favor of other Republicans.
Kushner’s memoir, which recounts his time as a senior adviser to Trump during his presidency, is set to be published on August 23.