Fox News in crisis mode over Epstein bombshell

Fox News is doing its best to ignore the scoop uncovered by its sister outlet, the Wall Street Journal, that President Donald Trump was reportedly told in May that his name appears in the government’s files about accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

After the Journal published its story on Wednesday afternoon, a TV Eyes transcript search of Fox News content suggests that it was mentioned in any detail only on “Special Report,” during a brief segment with anchor Brett Baier.

Otherwise, the bombshell that clarifies why Trump, his administration, and congressional Republicans continue to block release of Epstein-related files was buried by the conservative network. Fox hosts like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, and Greg Gutfeld effectively censored information damaging to Trump, hiding the report from their audiences.

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Fox News’ main website has also buried the story. A search for “Epstein” on the site appears to show no reporting on the Wall Street Journal’s story, and at the time of this story’s publication, the front page of the site was focused on other unrelated stories.

Similarly, the New York Post—which, like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, is owned by Rupert Murdoch—did not feature the Epstein story on the front page of the Thursday edition, even though that paper has a long history of hyping scandals involving sex.

The decision by these arms of Murdoch’s media empire to ignore a story originating from within that empire is jarring. Fox News frequently uses Journal stories to generate hours of content as well as related stories online.

Still, Trump is clearly upset at Murdoch that the Journal is reporting unflattering stories about his connection to Epstein. He is suing Murdoch and other reporters and executives at the paper after it reported that he sent a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein for his birthday.

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Opinion polling on the Epstein issue has been overwhelmingly negative for Trump, even as he has lied and claimed that he has gotten a surge in support. Among Democrats and independents, Trump has high negative ratings on how he is handling the Epstein scandal, and even among Republicans, the disapproval is in double digits.

The decision by Fox—Trump’s most valued media ally—to bury the latest embarrassment shows an awareness that the storyline is a political liability for the administration. Fox would much rather be touting Trump’s supposed accomplishments than getting into his possible ties to sex trafficking and assaults on underage girls.

Instead of covering the Trump-Epstein story, Fox has busied itself with pushing hours of coverage of a phony scandal involving former President Barack Obama and Russia. Fox and Trump are well known for pushing false and typically racist stories about Obama.

Fox works by hiding stories that are damaging to Republicans, especially Trump, but it is extremely unlikely that their strategy will pan out this time.

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