Trump’s Cabinet Is Straight Out of the Murdoch Mediaverse

Anyone surprised by the results of the recent presidential election—and President-elect Donald Trump’s astounding series of Cabinet and senior adviser picks since then—has not been reading the New York Post. Thanks to Rupert Murdoch and his red, white, and black tabloid, the fault lines that produced the seismic shocks of the last few weeks were triggered 47 years ago.

When the Australian press baron assumed full control of the Post at the start of 1977 after acquiring it from banking heiress Dorothy Schiff, the tabloid was a liberal Jewish newspaper—so far left that, according to former Post reporter and future New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen, interview subjects would deride the Post as “that pink newspaper.” And in the 1950s, its liberal heyday, the Post became known for raking the muck surrounding such powerful figures as red-baiting demagogue Senator Joseph McCarthy and urban developer Robert Moses.

Murdoch’s makeover of the tabloid was likened by another former Post reporter to “Sid Vicious taking over the Philharmonic.” He quickly imported reporters, editors, and tabloid tricks from his Fleet Street and Australian papers. Buxom young women in bikinis began to appear in the Post (albeit more demurely than the topless “Page 3” girls featured in his London paper The Sun), while fear-mongering headlines, like “24 HOURS OF TERROR” and “WE’LL BEHEAD THEM,” demanded attention, if not 25 cents, from New Yorkers passing by newsstands.

The longer, thoughtful stories that distinguished Schiff’s Post disappeared. Articles became short, sharp, and shocking, and were retrofitted to jibe with headlines written in advance. The most pervasive change that Murdoch brought to the Post’s pages was best described by one of the paper’s former books editors, Mackenzie Dawson: “I always felt like the Post covered New York like it was an opera.” Indeed, the paper created heroes and villains and depicted New York in melodramatic tones, both comic and tragic, with a substantial helping of the bizarre.

And as it evolved, the Post sometimes referred to these characters in provocative shorthand. Sydney Biddle Barrows, a socialite who ran a high-end brothel, became the Mayflower Madam; hotelier Leona Helmsley was dubbed the Queen of Mean; Amy Fisher was the Long Island Lolita; both Mob boss John Gotti and Donald Trump became—in different decades—Teflon Don.

The Post’s turn to the right happened gradually. The first politician Murdoch bet on was Democrat Ed Koch, at the time an also-ran in the city’s competitive 1977 mayoral race. To shove Koch over the finish line in the Democratic primary, Murdoch employed techniques that shocked veteran political operatives. Newspapers traditionally confined their candidate endorsements to the editorial pages, but in August of that year, the Post gave Koch its seal of approval on the front page. Slanted articles about Koch’s standing in the race followed. Future Times reporter and editor Joyce Purnick, who covered the campaign then and refused to take part in those stories, described it as “like being on a little island surrounded by polluted waters.”

One of the paper’s biggest pollutants was Roy Cohn, who came to prominence as McCarthy’s general counsel. Cohn became one of the paper’s best sources—so much so that it sat on an early tip about his eventual disbarment for unethical conduct.

Cohn played an instrumental role in the Post’s rightward slide. He helped Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election effort and played matchmaker with Murdoch, who liked some of Reagan’s policies despite concerns about the Californian’s competence. Former night managing editor Dave Banks recalled Murdoch coming back to the newsroom after dinner with the actor turned governor turned presidential candidate: “He was kind of appalled that Reagan was going to run for president.” Murdoch worried that Reagan was “an old guy. He can’t hear. I’m not sure that he’s all there,” per Banks. But Murdoch understood that if Reagan won the presidency, he would have a direct line to the White House through Cohn. And so the Post went all in on helping install Reagan at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In the early 1980s, Cohn also put a young real estate developer named Donald Trump on the Post’s radar. The paper’s longtime columnist Cindy Adams, who said she was introduced to Trump at a party thrown by Cohn, became a devout cheerleader, and Trump blanketed her and virtually all of the Post’s departments with tips and stories largely about himself. He had learned from his mentor Cohn that conflict brings attention and serves as a potent distraction from the actual skullduggery at hand. Many of those stories were specious at best, and as editors of Page Six during different times in the paper’s history—a column held to high standards of accuracy despite its classification as a gossip column—we grew weary of determining what was fit to print.

With a brutal circulation war taking place between the Post and the New York Daily News, Trump became page-one fodder for both of the city’s tabloids as one of the few local figures who could move newsstand sales. But the Post had less stringent standards and was more open to serving as Trump’s pre-Twitter public address system. The mainstream media, especially the major television networks, all based in the city, noticed the surfeit of coverage and followed suit. In 1987 came the publication of Trump’s quasi-memoir, The Art of the Deal, cementing him as a national figure.

The Post and Trump entered into a symbiotic relationship, and in the process, the real estate developer became adept at speaking tabloid-ese. He delivered clipped, exaggerated quotes, sowed conflict, attacked his enemies, and threatened lawsuits—tactics he learned from Cohn. His friendship with Adams exposed him to Friars Club–style insult comedy. He’s since given his political rivals and enemies Post-style nicknames: “Sleepy” Joe Biden, “Crazy” Nancy Pelosi, “Comrade” Kamala Harris.

In 1988, Senator Ted Kennedy—a frequent Post whipping boy—would force Murdoch to sell the paper, using an amendment prohibiting ownership of TV stations and newspapers in the same market. But Murdoch had already used the Post as a foundation to build a national media empire, purchasing an ad hoc network of television stations in major markets and using them to launch the Fox network in 1986. One of Murdoch’s first original programs was A Current Affair, which brought tabloid theatrics to the small screen with characters imported from Murdoch’s newspapers—among them, Steve Dunleavy, who embodied the Post’s fast, loose, and lurid approach to journalism. (It should be noted that many ethical and talented reporters and editors have worked at the Murdoch Post as well, which is one reason the paper cannot be dismissed.)

A Current Affair’s tabloid-TV approach generated ratings and such copycat shows as Hard Copy and Inside Edition. And in 1996, Murdoch rolled out Fox News, the cable TV equivalent of the Post’s political coverage, replete with the tactics he used to elect Ed Koch. Political news would become more polarized from there. Having reacquired the Post in 1993, Murdoch now had a right-wing echo chamber.

As Trump prepares to take the White House for a second time, he is seeking to assemble a Cabinet that is the governmental equivalent of the Post—a cast of controversial, attention-grabbing, and, in some cases, outright wacky characters that will occupy much of the media through the Senate confirmation process. It’s the equivalent of the chaff the military uses to distract enemies from the actual incoming warhead. Trump’s Cabinet and senior adviser picks would be tabloid gold for the Post if they hadn’t been picked by the president-elect it is backing. Not that the paper’s endorsement should be equated with its owner’s respect. Much as he did with Reagan, Murdoch has privately expressed doubts about Trump’s competency, but the leverage that comes with backing the winner of the White House eclipses all.

Trump’s choices include a former Fox News host who may have a serious drinking problem, as well as a white supremacist symbol tattooed on his bicep, and whose own mother denounced his treatment of women. (Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Defense, has denied having an issue with drinking, telling reporters, “I never had a drinking problem,” and adding that he had never been approached about having such an issue and had “never sought counseling” for one. He has also hit back against the claim that his tattoo is tied to white supremacy, calling the allegation an example of “anti-Christian bigotry.” In an interview with The New York Times, Hegseth’s mother said she immediately apologized to her son after criticizing his behavior, telling the paper that what she originally expressed to him was “not true” and “has never been true.”)

His selections also include a vaccine skeptic who had a worm in his brain and has a penchant for dead wild animals; the cofounder of a professional wrestling organization; the father-in-law of one of his daughters; the father-in-law of his other daughter (a convicted felon he pardoned last time around); a guy he golfs with; other former Fox personalities; and some billionaires with no government experience.

That’s just a partial list of what the Post might dub Trump’s “DEFILING CABINET” on page one—if Rupert Murdoch and his tabloid were not the architects of what awaits the nation.