Trump dined with Rupert Murdoch despite suing him for $10B over Epstein letter: Report

Why fto a $10 cardinal lawsuit get successful the mode of aged friends having immoderate chickenhearted and gravy for dinner?

President Donald Trump past week dined astatine the White House with Rupert Murdoch and that media baron's cardinal lieutenants, contempt Trump's ongoing defamation lawsuit implicit Murdoch's Wall Street Journal reporting that helium sent a "bawdy" 50th day missive to enactment offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to a new report.

Breaker Media connected Tuesday nighttime reported that Trump hosted his chap billionaire Murdoch and institution astatine the White House past Thursday.

Guests included Murdoch's wife, Elena Zhukova, New York Post exertion Keith Poole and Post columnists Miranda Devine and Douglas Murray, News UK CEO Rebekah Brooks, The Sun editor-at-large Harry Cole, arsenic good arsenic Vice President JD Vance and White House Susie Wiles, Breaker reported. Murdoch's News Corp owns The Post, The Sun, and News UK, on with the Journal.

The outlet said the radical ate chickenhearted and gravy.

Three months earlier the dinner, Trump, successful a societal media post, wrote, "I look guardant to getting Rupert Murdoch to attest successful my suit against him and his 'pile of garbage' newspaper, the WSJ."

"That volition beryllium an absorbing experience!!!" the president wrote.

CNBC has requested remark connected the study from News Corp and the White House. A spokesperson for Trump's ineligible squad declined to comment.

The reported meal came 5 days earlier Trump's ineligible squad filed a blistering effect to a petition by Murdoch's lawyers that a national justice successful Miami disregard the president's defamation lawsuit.

That suit is simply a glaring objection to the often cozy narration Trump has with Murdoch's blimpish media empire, which includes Fox News. The Post and Fox person acted arsenic cheerleaders for Trump and his policies for years, and Trump, for decades, has been an avid scholar of and fixture successful The Post's tabloid pages.

The existent quality stems from a July 17 study by the Journal, which said that a risqué missive bearing Trump's signature was included successful an medium of letters that Epstein was fixed for his 50th day enactment successful 2003.

At the clip of the party, Trump was a person of Epstein. The 2 aboriginal had a falling out; Epstein died from a jailhouse termination successful August 2019, weeks aft being arrested connected national kid enactment trafficking charges.

The Journal noted that the typewritten substance of the missive was "framed by the outline of a bare woman, which appears to beryllium hand-drawn with a dense marker."

"A brace of tiny arcs denotes the woman's breasts, and the aboriginal president's signature is simply a squiggly 'Donald' beneath her waist, mimicking pubic hair," the paper noted.

Trump angrily denied penning the missive the nighttime that the Journal communicative was published.

"This is not me. This is simply a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story," Trump said successful a Truth Social post. "I ne'er wrote a representation successful my life. I don't gully pictures of women," helium said. "It's not my language. It's not my words."

Trump besides said that helium had personally warned Murdoch that Trump would writer him if the Journal printed the story.

"Mr. Murdoch stated that helium would instrumentality attraction of it but, obviously, did not person the powerfulness to bash so," Trump claimed connected Truth Social.

On July 18, Trump sued Murdoch, the Journal, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson, and the 2 reporters who wrote the article.

The suit denied that Trump authored the letter, and that, "Despite the glaring failures successful journalistic morals and standards of close reporting, Defendants Dow Jones and News Corp — astatine the absorption of Defendants Murdoch and Thomson — published to the satellite the false, defamatory, and malignant statements authored by Defendants."

Trump has continued denying helium wrote the missive adjacent aft Democrats successful the House of Representatives successful aboriginal September released a screenshot of the missive that the Journal reported on. The missive was obtained by the House Oversight Committee from Epstein's estate, pursuant to a subpoena.

Murdoch's lawyers flagged that missive to the justice overseeing Trump's lawsuit.

In their motion to disregard that case, Murdoch's lawyers said that the nonfiction is true, and that the missive released by the House sheet contains a "letter identical to the 1 described successful the Article."

The lawyers besides argued that the nonfiction is not defamatory.

The question noted that Trump has acknowledged being a longtime person of Epstein, and that helium was quoted by New York mag 3 months earlier the day party, calling Epstein a "terrific guy"
who "likes beauteous women arsenic overmuch arsenic I do."

"President Trump has besides publically admitted to 'locker room' speech and has made galore bawdy nationalist statements," Murdoch's lawyers wrote.

"The Article is truthful accordant with President Trump's self-described reputation."

Trump's lawyers, successful their effect to that motion, called the arguments by Murdoch's lawyers "disjointed" and incorrect.

"The Article was afloat driven by Defendants' salacious and scandal-driven narratives that prioritize gossip, clicks, and nett implicit truth," Trump's lawyers said.