Rupert Murdoch takes swing at Trump for incessant focus on 2020 election results: ‘The past is the past’

‘It is crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role,’ said the billionaire

Media tycoon, and executive chairman of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch slammed President Trump for remaining too focused on the past, during a company shareholders call on Wednesday.

"It is crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in that debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past," he said, according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. "The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future."

Murdoch's media empire includes US cable channel Fox News, the New York-based Wall Street Journal and New York Post, plus London's The Times.

Fox News championed Mr Trump’s presidency, but their bond waned before the 2020 election, when the polls showed Joe Biden in the lead. Mr Trump was outraged when Fox News made a bold early call on election results and called Arizona for Mr Biden. Armed Trump protesters turned on the network in Arizona in November 2020, shouting “Fox News sucks!”

Arizona hasn't been a Democrat state in more than 20 years. Fox News has largely been unsupportive of Mr Trump's false election fraud claims.

During his presidency, Mr Trump called the network “the new Fox News”, and said it was “letting millions of GREAT people down!”

However, Mr Trump still has a good relationship with many of the network's hosts.

At Wednesday's meeting, Mr Murdoch also criticised Facebook and Google and accused them of "censorship".

"There is no doubt that Facebook employees try to silence conservative voices," he said, "and a quick Google News search on most contemporary topics often reveals a similar pattern of selectivity – or, to be blunt, censorship.”

Twitter froze the New York Post's account after controversial articles about Joe Biden's son. The social media platform suggested the publication had violated its policies concerning hacking and has questions about “the origins of the materials".

"Twitter backs down, finally unlocks Post account after Biden ban" read the paper's front page when the decision was reversed. It was the first time Twitter had put the breaks on a news organisation.