Murdoch's Succession Battle and the Fight for Fox News

What are the key differences between Murdoch's children, particularly Lachlan and James? How do the internal family conflicts of the Murdochs mirror the TV show Succession? What will Rupert Murdoch's legacy be? Alastair is joined by two-time Rupert Murdoch biographer, Michael Wolff, to discuss all this and more. Unlock the full five-part mini-series The Rise and Fall of Rupert Murdoch – only with The Rest Is Politics Plus. Members enjoy bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to new shows. Start your 7-day free trial today at ⁠therestispolitics.com⁠ Written & Produced by: Nicole Maslen Video Editor: Charlie Rodwell Social Producer: Celine Charles Filmed by: Charlie Rodwell Senior Producer: Callum Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Alastair Campbell?

  Hi there, welcome to The Rest Is Politics, it's Alastair here and this week is the finale of our series on Rupert Murdoch and today it's all about da-da succession, it's not just squabbling children, we're looking at the politics behind this squabble, the disagreements over the way he backed Donald Trump and what it all means for Rupert Murdoch's legacy. That sounds interesting, here is a clip from that episode. And so we left the last episode with Murdoch kind of regretting in a way his help via Fox News in Donald Trump's rise to power and in particular regretting them buying into the Trump conspiracy theory of the stolen election which ended up in a court case which cost

• 0:47Alastair Campbell?

  Murdoch almost a billion dollars.

• 0:49Michael Wolff?

  I think it's larger than just regret too, I think it's it's kind of a, you know, moving into the territory of a bitter ending for him. You know, his dream was always to elect a president of the United States and the bitter irony is that that turned out to be Donald Trump, a man he detests, who he believes is unfit and unworthy or in brief, as he says, an asshole.

• 1:20Alastair Campbell?

  And whose children have similar views about Trump and who are now, because Rupert Murdoch is, as you say, getting towards his final chapters, he's now 94, they really are now beginning to think about succession, but let's just get back to that post-election period because as you say, Murdoch despises Trump, he goes around, he calls him crazy, Jerry Hall, his new wife, keeps shouting at him and saying, well, you know, you helped put him in president, so do something about it. He's kind of thinking, how can I redeem myself here? And he has this... This unbelievable idea, perhaps born of something that we referred to in an earlier

• 2:04Alastair Campbell?

  episode, when he miraculously turned Ed Koch into a charismatic figure and he went on to become New York mayor. And now Murdoch decides to put his weight behind one Ron DeSantis.

• 2:16Michael Wolff?

  Certainly in hindsight, it's unbelievable. I mean, the least ready for primetime candidate there could be. I mean, a completely uncharismatic candidate to run against arguably the most charismatic, I use the word in the mega sense of charisma, but the idea that Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, could run against Donald Trump is certainly in hindsight absolutely ridiculous. But Murdoch goes all in. I mean, his declared policy, Fox is going to not only support Ron DeSantis on the air, but keep Donald Trump off the air. And it is

• 2:59Michael Wolff?

  going to be the test, the ultimate test, who's stronger, Fox or Trump? And we now know.

• 3:07Alastair Campbell?

  Trump won. When he's doing this stuff about, so like, we used to have Roger Ailes kind of sending out these morning memos, you know, hit this point, Obama is this today, this is the line to say. And I remember once watching this thing where one of the media monitoring organizations put together a thing where Roger Ailes had given them a phrase to use on that particular day. And you then saw every single network anchor and every single two-way, as the day went on, it came out of their mouth at some point. Murdoch is kind of trying to do something similar here, but he's getting pushed back.

• 3:40Michael Wolff?

  Well, he is, because remember, to survive at Fox, you need ratings. And I'm going to tell you, Ron DeSantis ain't going to give you ratings compared to Donald Trump. Although that's the policy. I mean, they really, really, really keep Trump off the air. So it's a, it's a problem for everyone. And then when DeSantis is wiped out, which is relatively early in the 2024 process, Trump.

• 4:10Michael Wolff?

  Starts to creep back in and by certainly by the summer 2024 is is back as the Fox guy Murdoch effectively gives up.

• 4:20Alastair Campbell?

  The two big, big stars of Fox, Hannity and Tucker Carlson, what was the consequence for them of the Dominion Voting Systems court case in which we ended the last?

• 4:31Michael Wolff?

  Well, curiously, Hannity, who was the really guilty here, I mean, he's the, he's the, he's the one who pressed this Dominion conspiracy business. There are no consequences, quite the opposite. He, he continues to rise. But Tucker Carlson is actually as a kind of side agreement in the Dominion case. The Dominion case wants, wants the money, but they also want some pound of flesh. And the pound of flesh that they kind of agree with on the side is that Tucker Carlson will be fired. You know, another irony that, that, you know,

• 5:08Michael Wolff?

  Carlson was probably the least implicated in the Dominion conspiracy mongering stuff. But on the other hand, he's the most prominent MAGA person on the network.

• 5:24Alastair Campbell?

  And of course, he's big enough brand to go out and do, he still remains a, remains a player.

• 5:29Michael Wolff?

  A very, very significant player and a, you know, a potential Republican candidate in the future. Yes.

• 5:36Alastair Campbell?

  And you think that's still the case today?

• 5:38Michael Wolff?

  Oh, very much.

• 5:39Alastair Campbell?

  Okay. And then meanwhile, the family remain divided. As I say, Murdoch's now into his 90s. They're really starting to think about.

• 5:49Michael Wolff?

  I mean, yes, and division is, is, is putting it lightly. I mean, there, it's armed camps. The idea that the Murdoch family would, would, would receive this legacy and march arm in arm into the future has, to say the very least, crumbled. This family falling apart is, you know, Donald Trump is at the center of this. I mean, this is really a political. It's a political falling apart. So it's one of the, you know, again, the chickens come home to roost for Rupert Murdoch, who has wanted nothing more than this legacy

• 6:30Michael Wolff?

  for his family, but who has politicized so many things that, um, that it turns out also has compromised his family's future.

• 6:41Alastair Campbell?

  Yeah. And so, very conveniently, so we've, we've got the convenient fact of this program about this new drama series about phone hacking that coincides with us recording. And also very inconveniently, we'll come to this at the end, this succession issue has kind of been resolved. But before we get to that, let's just go through the four, the four children, um, the four older children, Prue, Lachlan, James and Elizabeth. Let's go through them one by one.

• 7:09Michael Wolff?

  Okay. And let's not exclude because it's going to be a factor to the two, the two younger children.

• 7:15Alastair Campbell?

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