"Regime Change" scoop: The night Murdoch was quizzed on Vance vs. Rubio
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Cover: Simon & Schuster
In a scene from the forthcoming "Regime Change," President Trump asks a guest at a private dinner last year to compare Vice President Vance to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump often does that to stir the pot on 2028 speculation. But this time, the judge was Rupert Murdoch.
- And with Vance and Rubio sitting awkwardly at the table, Murdoch was notably more effusive about Rubio. The media mogul had privately tried to talk Trump out of choosing Vance as his running mate in 2024.
Why it matters: Trump's parlor game — recounted in a 3,000-word passage in "Regime Change," by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, out next Tuesday — shows that Vance, as the authors write, can be sure Trump won't "make it easy for him" to get the 2028 GOP nomination.
- The passage was obtained by Axios.
The intrigue: We told you this weekend that top White House officials fear Haberman and Swan obtained audio recordings of Situation Room meetings for the book. Vance confirmed those fears Tuesday: He told conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly about a "Regime Change" excerpt in The New York Times:
- "There were certain things in there that legitimately made me worried that people were taping ... which, by the way, is a felony."
The big picture: Haberman and Swan write that the dinner on Oct. 16, 2025, was a rapprochement for the billionaires. Murdoch had been a confidant in Trump's first term. But Trump sued Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal last year over an article about the president's former friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
- The book notes that many parts of the Murdoch empire "were still on friendly terms with the Trump team ... There were even discussions among some News Corp executives about the possibility of a book that would present Trump as the 'President of Peace.' They believed it would be a bestseller."
Zoom in: "The hostilities between the President and the tycoon had suddenly cooled," the authors write. "Trump was in an avuncular mood" as he greeted the dinner party of Murdoch and White House aides, with the tycoon seated beside Trump at the head of the table. Trump asked Murdoch who he liked best between Vance and Rubio, with the president adding: "They're both great."
- Trump: "What do you think of JD?"
- Murdoch: "Well ... I think JD has the potential to be great."
- Trump: "And what do you think of Marco?"
- Murdoch answered immediately: "Marco is brilliant."
"The other guests would talk privately about the moment for weeks after the dinner," Haberman and Swan write.
