- Three of the most prominent right-wing media outlets in the US are blaming Trump for the GOP's underperformance in the midterms.
- Fox News, the NY Post, and WSJ editorial board have all published critical pieces about Trump since Election Day.
A slew of right-wing media outlets have published stories criticizing former President Donald Trump after the so-called "red wave" failed to materialize in this year's midterm elections.
Despite high hopes that the GOP would end up with a decisive majority in the House of Representatives and win critical Senate and gubernatorial races across the country, the red wave ended up being more of a ripple, with key Trump-backed candidates losing or being locked in races that are still too close to call.
Now, a trifecta of leading right-wing media outlets — all owned by the Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch — is joining with many Republican consultants to point the finger at the former president.
The New York Post published a Thursday cover story mocking "Trumpty Dumpty" for failing to unify the Republican Party.
"Don (who couldn't build a wall) had a great fall — can all the GOP's men put the party back together again?" the cover said alongside a cartoon depiction of Trump as Humpty Dumpty.
Murdoch-owned Fox News published a story underscoring how conservatives feel Trump has weakened the Republican Party's standing among voters.
In one tweet highlighted in the story, Michael Brendan Dougherty, a senior writer at the right-leaning National Review, wrote that "all the chatter on my conservative and GOP channels is rage at Trump like I've never seen. The one guy he attacked before Election Day was DeSantis — the clear winner, meanwhile, all his guys are s----ing the bed."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis cruised to victory over his Democratic opponent with a nearly 20-percentage point lead, a commanding win that some compared favorably to Trump's 2020 performance, in which he carried the state by just 3.4 percentage points.
The Wall Street Journal's editorial board followed suit, publishing a piece Thursday calling Trump the GOP's "biggest loser."
The editorial went on to single out a number of Trump-backed candidates — Don Bolduc in New Hampshire, Blake Masters in Arizona, Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania — who lost or are trailing their opponents because, in the editorial board's view, they hitched their wagons to Trump.
The piece went on to note that JD Vance, the author and political neophyte who won Ohio's Senate race, was successful not because he got Trump's endorsement but because Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threw his political and fundraising weight behind Vance in the final stretch of the campaign.
The WSJ editorial board blamed Trump for having "botched" the 2022 midterms, adding that "it could hand Democrats the Senate for two more years."
'"We're going to win so much," Mr. Trump once said, 'that you're going to get sick and tired of winning.' Maybe by now Republicans are sick and tired of losing," the board said.
Trump, for his part, has rejected responsibility and ranted on his social media website, Truth Social, throughout Thursday afternoon that he was not upset about the midterm results.
"For those many people that are being fed the fake narrative from the corrupt media that I am Angry about the Midterms, don't believe it," he wrote. "I am not at all angry, did a great job (I wasn't the one running!), and am very busy looking into the future. Remember, I am a 'Stable Genius.'"
Trump's post came after the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted that Trump was "furious this morning, particularly about Oz, and was blaming everyone who advised him to back Oz," including former first lady Melania Trump, the Fox News host Sean Hannity, and casino mogul Steve Wynn.
Trump described "it as not her best decision, according to people close to him," Haberman tweeted.
The former president offered a rare public apology to his wife amid Haberman's reporting, writing on Truth Social that he'd "like to apologize to Melania and Sean Hannity for all of the Fake News and fictional stories."