FOX News owner Rupert Murdoch hosted Governor Ron DeSantis at his California Ranch in Bel Air in 2020. He told him FOX News would support his potential run for president in 2024.
Since then Murdoch and FOX Corp fired its top host Tucker Carlson who was a favorite of the Trump-MAGA crowd.
FOX News has since implemented a soft ban on President Trump.
The news channel is suffering from this new direction. FOX News has lost nearly half of its audience since firing Tucker Carlson.
Knewz reported on this meeting. For the record, Knewz was owned by Murdoch’s NewsCorp until 2021.
According to Vanity Fair, the conservative news mogul invited the Florida Governor to his Vineyard in Bel Air, California for dinner in 2020 and assured him that Fox would support his potential presidential run in 2024.
Earlier this year, signs of this sentiment became more apparent as Fox implemented a soft ban on Trump and began featuring DeSantis more frequently.
Additionally, during this time, the Dominion lawsuit loomed over the news corporation, prompting it to distance itself from the election controversy and thus steer clear of Trump.
Murdoch even expressed regret, stating that he would have preferred his anchors to be more assertive in denouncing Trump’s election conspiracies that defined his campaigns. He was also quoted saying, “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” per the Independent.