Why Trump’s Lawsuit Against Murdoch and the Journal Is a Sure Loser

While he was out of power, Trump encouraged MAGA’s obsession and promised to open the books if he returned to the White House. And in recent weeks, Attorney General Pam Bondi all but swore that the full story was coming, only to deliver a meek “never mind” and retreat to the position that there were in fact no Epstein files to reveal.

So when the Journal reported that Trump’s name appeared in a 2003 birthday note in one of Epstein’s personal notebooks, it wasn’t just another tabloid tidbit. It was confirmation of the deepest suspicions in MAGA world that—along with the Bondi reveal, which nobody believes—have given rise to a drumbeat for the administration to come clean that shows no signs of going away.

Trump’s response was to immediately deploy his very thin playbook, bringing a defamation suit against the Journal and a series of its employees, plus owner Rupert Murdoch, still a major decision-maker at the paper as well as at Fox News.