Trump Put on Spot About Murdoch Feud With Billionaire Feet Away

Rupert Murdoch in Oval Office with Donald Trump
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

President Donald Trump got to air grievances about The Wall Street Journal editorial board’s sniping at him Monday—right in front of its owner Rupert Murdoch.

The president was asked by a reporter in the Oval Office whether his decision to pause plans for 25-percent tariffs on Mexico was spurred by the stock market’s reaction to his trade war or negative coverage from Murdoch’s paper.

“Was that partially related to the market reaction and a criticism from Mr. Murdoch’s own newspaper, he called it the ‘dumbest trade war,’” the reporter asked, referencing a Journal editorial railing on the tariffs on Mexico and Canada headlined, “The Dumbest Trade War in History.” (Trump later called the paper “always wrong” and the head of the “Tariff Lobby.”)

Trump, just feet away from Murdoch who had joined him in the Oval Office for a meeting, snickered at the mention. “I’m going to have to talk to him,” he said. “I’ve been right over The Wall Street Journal many times. I don’t agree with him on some things."

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The editorial board, often viewed as a mouthpiece for Murdoch, has criticized many of Trump’s policies since he took office last month. It tore into his plans to levy tariffs on Mexico and Canada, saying his “justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense.”

“Mr. Trump sometimes sounds as if the U.S. shouldn’t import anything at all, that America can be a perfectly closed economy making everything at home,” it wrote. “This is called autarky, and it isn’t the world we live in, or one that we should want to live in, as Mr. Trump may soon find out.”

It also previously said Trump’s pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters sent “a rotten message from a president about political violence done on his behalf” and called his decision to strip his political enemies of their security details part of “some vindictive whim.”

Paul Gigot, the editor of the Journal‘s editorial pages, told the Associated Press last week the board was “covering Trump like we do every president, and that means supporting his decisions when they warrant it, and criticizing them when that is deserved.”

Still, that did not stop Murdoch from meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, his first White House visit since Trump returned to power. He sat in the office alongside billionaire Larry Ellison as Trump signed an executive order to start a sovereign wealth fund and lavished praise on the billionaires.

“Rupert is in a class by himself,” Trump told reporters. “He’s an amazing guy.”