The protocol had been meticulously arranged. On September 17 at Windsor Castle, King Charles III held a state dinner in honor of his guest, Donald Trump. The table, dubbed the "Waterloo table" in memory of the British victory over Napoleon, stretched more than 50 meters and seated the English-speaking world's wealthy and powerful elite. The American was seated to Charles's right.
Some 10 meters away, or perhaps even farther, sat one of the dinner's distinguished guests: Rupert Murdoch, the creator of the eponymous media empire. He had to be kept apart from Trump, and so the table was arranged so that the two titans of the Western conservative world could ignore each other. They had fallen out − a situation not without consequences for politics in the United States.
The story between the two men – Trump, 79, and Murdoch, 94 – is linked to the Republican Party's recent evolution and reveals a transformation in the profile of American conservatism. Their interests are intertwined: There would be no President Trump without Murdoch, and the Australian-American media mogul has in turn thrived on a captive market of Republican voters. For a long time, they worked hand in hand: I bring you an audience, you promote me. Created in 1996, Fox News − the powerful television arm of the Murdoch empire − has devoted itself, body and soul, to Trump ever since 2016. The network played a powerful role in his election. It moved away from traditional Republican Party doctrine – pro–free trade and pro–immigration – toward the startling political-ideological cocktail that drives Trump.
Fox News fully embraced the grand lie of the "stolen" 2020 election, following Democratic former President Joe Biden's victory. It spearheaded the massive disinformation effort successfully launched by the Republican Party, which had fallen under Trump's sway. Alongside a handful of other falsehoods, the network spread conspiracy theories about allegedly rigged electronic voting machines. Sued by Dominion Voting Systems (one of the companies that manufacture these machines), Fox was forced to pay $787 million (€670 million) in damages. The sum stung Murdoch, and has cast a shadow over his relationship with Trump.
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