For many one-time MAGA Republicans, Donald Trump may officially be yesterday’s news. For Rupert Murdoch, the former president is still front-page-worthy — but only mockingly. At least that seems to be the message the 91-year-old media mogul is sending with the New York Post’s latest cover, which depicts the toddler-esque former president as Humpty Dumpty, complete with the terrible nursery rhyme: “Don (who couldn’t build a wall) had a great fall — can all the GOP’s men put the party back together again?”
Maggie Haberman shared an early peek at the cover on Wednesday evening via Twitter, and couldn’t help but note the “rather stark pivot” from the formerly Trump-friendly publication:
This is a rather stark pivot pic.twitter.com/p1fJVzFDhu
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 10, 2022
Even more surprising to Haberman, The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the recent Trump tell-all Confidence Man, was the fact that within the Post’s pages, columnist Michael Goodwin — a longtime Trump loyalist and Fox News contributor— declared Ron DeSantis “the future of the GOP” in an op-ed that begins:
“An old proverb says that the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on. In an updated version, Donald Trump plays the noisy dog as Ron DeSantis marches to victory.”
More shocking than that front page is Michael Goodwin also ditching pleasantries about Trump and declare DeSantis the future https://t.co/2rx819AOdP
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 10, 2022
But Haberman also clearly saw this coming; as she noted, Murdoch suggested abandoning Trump two years ago — an idea that now seems to be coming to fruition. (Even former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has seemingly turned on her former boss.)
“We should throw this guy over,” Murdoch said in Nov. 2020. Two years later, he basically is.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 10, 2022
Given that Trump is already seething over the “humiliating” failure of the candidates he endorsed in the midterms, and that some conservative media outlets have branded him a “loser” — not to mention the fact that he has pathetically been boasting about how he actually got more votes in Florida (in a totally different election) than DeSantis did — it’s hard to imagine that the former president is going to save this cover for his scrapbook.