Trump, White House Wire stop citing WSJ after Epstein story
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The White House Wire, a news headlines outlet run by the White House, and President Trump's Truth Social account avoided linking and citing the Wall Street Journal last month after WSJ's blockbuster report on the president's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Why it matters: By comparison, the White House and Trump continue to cite the Journal's sister outlet Fox News more than any other outlet by far, according to an analysis from The Righting and Axios.
State of play: The White House Wire didn't link once to the Journal in its July newsletters, after referencing it twice in June, according to an analysis by The Righting, a conservative media-tracking outlet authored by Howard Polskin.
- Trump didn't cite any of the WSJ's journalism on his Truth Social account last month, despite citing nearly every other mainstream news outlet, including USA Today, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, CBS News and many others.
- While he didn't cite the New York Times on his Truth Social account last month, the White House Wire linked out to the outlet twice in its email newsletters, per The Righting.
Yes, but: The White House Rapid Response account on X has shared four WSJ links since the Epstein report.
- The account has roughly 1.2 million followers on X compared with President Trump's 10.6 million on Truth Social.
Zoom in: In June — before the Journal published its now infamous Epstein report on July 17 — Trump cited the outlet once on his Truth Social account, posting a picture of a flattering headline from the paper's print edition.
Reality check: The White House and the president aren't typically averse to cite outlets he's in legal battles with or outlets he doesn't like.
- Trump continued to cite CBS News and Associated Press earlier this year, amid lawsuits with both outlets. He continued to cite flattering polls or headlines from CBS News and ABC News last month.
- He cited CNN multiple times on Truth Social last month, posting clips of network anchors covering flattering jobs or poll numbers.
Zoom out: The citations show just how much the Trump-Epstein saga has splintered Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
- Last month, nearly half (48) of Trump's Truth Social posts linking to or embedding press coverage cited Murdoch-owned outlets, besides the Journal. He cited Fox News, Fox Business and the New York Post 41, 17 and 8 times, respectively, according to an Axios analysis.
- Roughly 42% of the links cited by the White House Wire last month went to those three outlets, per The Righting.
- The Axios analysis includes links to articles, videos and screenshots of flattering headlines or polls from an outlet.
The bottom line: Trump and the White House both rely heavily on coverage from mainstream outlets to promote their agenda. Typically, fights with those outlets don't preclude them from citing their coverage, when flattering, but the Journal story seems to have hit a nerve.
- Last week, Murdoch and Trump agreed to postpone Murdoch's deposition in the president's lawsuit against the Journal.
Editor's note: This story was updated to reflect the White House Rapid Response account has shared WSJ links since July 17.
