On MS NOW's On the Line with Alicia Menendez, Angelo Carusone explains how a NY Post editorial criticizing the Trump family's corruption is giving a “permission structure” for others in right-wing media to break from Trump
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From the June 30, 2026, edition of MS NOW's On the Line with Alicia Menendez
ALICIA MENENDEZ (HOST): Angelo, is the president losing the Washington -- The New York Post?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, kind of. But I mean, can we put this in context a little bit because --
MENENDEZ: Please, please.
CARUSONE: Because this is about the third time, this is the third time this has happened. It happened after January 6. It happened after the 2022 midterms where Republicans really got, you know, where Murdoch decided he was going to finally use that as a chance to push push Trump out because they didn't perform as well as they wanted. And it's happening now. This is the third time. And it's it's less a, you know, a big a larger indication of a big shift and more like survival instincts because it's usually Murdoch tends to attack when Trump's at his most electorally weak. But here's why I sort of held back in an easy answer to your question, because the devil's in the details. This is sort of like a shot across the bow, right? Because one of the things that stuck out was in the article, it said they profited handsomely. They didn't explain the numbers, which are jaw dropping, right? They didn't get into the fact that the UAE made these giant investments in the crypto firm before Trump sort of got reelected. Like it left out a lot of the gory details. So there's places to go. And so I see this as a break and as a permission structure for others to break too. And it is different. It's contextually different. The last two times Murdoch broke with Trump, the rest of the right-wing media ecosystem was still there. Tucker was still in his corner, right? That's not the case right now. The -- all of the landscape is starting to fray. The MAGA coalition isn't the same as it was, so I don't want to oversell it. It's the third time he breaks when Trump is weak, and then he scurries back whenever Trump is perceived as strong again.
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CARUSONE: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is, like I said, it's survival. What they're trying to do is stake out some terrain and some credibility within the space post, post the midterms, so that he can make a larger pivot toward trying to anoint a new successor. That's what he tried to do in 2022, that they attacked Trump really aggressively, and then they immediately pivoted to trying to identify a new successor. That's how Murdoch maintains his political power over the decades, is that he tries to pick who the new winner is going to be. That hasn't worked out for him so well with Trump, it's also a reflection of, you know, two can play at this game and, you know, you're supposed to dial it back a little bit. I don't think it's like no corruption, right? Because that's silly. They're not going to take that position. Just look at their coverage. I mean, they talked about Hunter Biden 13,440 times between January 2023 and April 2024. We know what it looks like when Murdoch's apparatus is hitting on corruption. That's what it looks like. It's a cacophony, but it's a reflection of I have some muscle, too, and you're weak and you need me. In a weird way. I think it's kind of based on a little bit of corruption, if you think about it, which is, you know, my hand can wash your back a little bit if you play ball with me.