The editors of the Wall Street Journal, the American flagship of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire, condemned President Trump on Thursday for inducing a crowd of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol and encouraged Mr. Trump to step down for a second To prevent impeachment by the democratically controlled house.
In an unsigned article entitled “Donald Trump’s Final Days,” the editorial page of the journal – a leitmotif for the Conservative establishment – condemned the president for “attacking the constitutional process of transferring power after an election,” saying, “This week has has probably killed him as a serious political figure. “It described its behavior as” incontestable “.
“If Mr Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and step down,” the Journal concluded: “It is best for everyone, including yourself, to quietly walk away.”
The editorial page of the journal, led by publisher Paul A. Gigot, has sometimes harshly criticized Mr. Trump in the past. But his most recent volley was a notable rejection by the president from a news agency controlled by Mr Murdoch, whose Fox News cable network is home to several of Mr Trump’s most loyal and long-time media defenders.
Mr Murdoch’s publicists had previously stated that he did not expect Mr Trump to win re-election, and another Murdoch publication, The New York Post, trumpeted President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, though Mr Trump refused to accept the results.
The Post, in its own unsigned editorial on Thursday, stopped arguing that Mr Trump should leave the White House early and instead urged his aides to “stay and stop the madmen.” Given Mr. Murdoch’s influence on the political views of his newspapers, the journal’s blunt words on Thursday were sure to sting Mr. Trump, who once longed for the Mughal’s approval.
The president was treated more graciously on Fox News Wednesday night when prime-time hosts like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham criticized the day’s violence at the Capitol but failed to blame Mr. Trump.
A representative for Mr Murdoch did not respond to a question for comment on Thursday.
The editorial page of the journal found common ground with Mr Trump throughout its presidency, and some of its prominent writers resigned in protest of what they viewed as betrayals of the site’s conservative values. (One defector, Bret Stephens, is now a columnist for the New York Times.)
The site has also routinely pinned liberals. There was an outcry last month after The Journal published an article arguing that Mr. Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, should drop the honorable “Dr.” from her name because she has a PhD in education, not medicine.
Even during the caning of Mr. Trump, which was due to be published in print Friday, Mr. Gigot and his staff took time to beat up the Democrats for calling the president a “ham hand” for what the newspaper said last year The party had “abused the process”.
But events this week in Washington, the newspaper wrote, showed that Mr. Trump “refused to accept the basic democracy agreement, namely to accept the outcome, win or lose”.
“The best case for impeachment is not to punish Mr. Trump,” the newspaper wrote. “It is a message to future presidents that Congress will protect itself from populists of all ideological lines who are ready to stir up a mob.”
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