Trump Says He’ll Meet With Rupert Murdoch, Ask Him to Nix Negative Political Ads

The former president criticized Fox News for airing attack ads targeting him.

Former President Donald Trump says he will ask media mogul Rupert Murdoch to stop Fox News from airing negative political ads against him ahead of the election.

“I’m going to see Rupert Murdoch,” Trump said during a Friday morning appearance on “Fox and Friends.”

“I’m going to tell him something very simple, because I can’t talk to anybody else about it: Don’t put on negative commercials for 21 days,” the Republican presidential nominee said.

Murdoch, 93, stepped down as chairman of Fox News’ parent company, Fox Corp., last year, ending a seven-decade career that spawned a media empire. His son, Lachlan, now serves as the company’s chairman and CEO.

Trump said he wasn’t sure the older Murdoch would be “thrilled” with his disclosing their meeting on air, but said that he was planning to say, “‘Rupert, please do it this way.’ And then we’re going to have a victory, because I think everybody wants to have a victory.”

The former president has ramped up his criticism of Fox News in recent weeks, criticizing the network via his Truth Social platform for giving airtime to Democrat pundits and Harris campaign officials.

Echoing that criticism Friday, he said, “In the old days, you never played negative ads. … When I leave here, I’ll then be hit by five or six ads.”

Host Brian Kilmeade responded that the network airs the ads because advertisers pay for those time slots.

Trump and his allies have made frequent appearances on Fox News amid his third bid for the White House. His latest critiques come just days after Harris sat for an interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier in an appeal to the network’s largely conservative audience.

The exchange quickly grew heated as the pair repeatedly interrupted and talked over each other.

David Plouffe, a senior advisor to the Harris campaign, called the interview an “ambush” in a social media post, while the campaign accused Fox News of selectively editing a video clip of Trump that aired during the interview.

Baier later admitted on his show, “Special Report,” that he “did make a mistake” in that he expected another clip to be shown. He also defended his interviewing style, telling fellow Fox News host Harris Faulkner that Harris “was going to be tough to redirect without me trying to interrupt.”

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.