Trump Hosted Murdoch at Weekend Game Before Explosive WSJ Epstein Story

President Donald Trump hosted NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch at the FIFA Club World Cup Final just days before The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had written a “bawdy” birthday letter to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

Murdoch was among several high-profile political and media figures who joined Trump in his suite at the World Cup final on July 13, the Associated Press and CBS News reported. Others included Attorney General Pam Bondi, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and football legend Tom Brady.

The Context

Trump and Murdoch have had a cozy professional relationship for years, with Murdoch’s media empire—which includes Fox News and the New York Post—publishing a slew of stories that have been favorable to Trump, from when he was a Manhattan real-estate tycoon, to when he entered politics and finally when he became president of the United States.

But Trump’s relationship with Murdoch reached a boiling point this week, when the Journal reported that Trump was among dozens of people who wrote letters to Epstein celebrating his 50th birthday in 2003. The story threw a wrench into Trump’s repeated efforts to distance himself from the disgraced businessman as the administration grapples with the fallout from its handling of the investigation into Epstein’s 2019 death in a New York City jail.

What To Know

On Thursday, four days after Murdoch joined Trump at the FIFA final, the Journal reported that the president was among the people who wrote letters to Epstein celebrating his birthday. Trump’s letter is said to have featured several lines of typewritten text surrounded by the outline of a naked woman, sketched in marker, and included Trump’s signature.

“Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” the letter said, according to the report.

When the Journal approached Trump before publishing its story, the president said in an interview that the letter was “fake” and threatened to sue the paper if it published the explosive report.

Trump raged against the Journal in a Truth Social post on Thursday after its report was published, saying he would sue the paper “shortly” over its “defamatory story.”

The president said he had “personally” warned the outlet and Murdoch before they printed the report that he would sue them if they pressed ahead with publication, and said that Murdoch had assured him that he would “take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so.”

Trump said on Truth Social that in addition to the Journal, he plans to sue Murdoch and the Journal‘s parent company, NewsCorp.

“The Press has to learn to be truthful, and not rely on sources that probably don’t even exist,” he wrote, adding that he “looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal.”

Newsweek reached out to NewsCorp via email outside of normal business hours for comment.

The public and media’s renewed focus on Epstein exploded after the Department of Justice, released a memo last week concluding that the sex offender died by suicide in 2019 in his Manhattan jail cell and that the government was not in possession of an “incriminating” list of Epstein’s “clients.”

The memo threw cold water on years of conspiracy theories—amplified for months by Bondi and other Trump administration officials—suggesting that Epstein was killed as part of a government cover-up. In the days since, Trump administration officials have alternated between saying there are no Epstein files and that the files were a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.

Trump also lambasted his supporters as “weaklings” and said they got “duped” by the Epstein “hoax,” despite the fact that his own officials, including Bondi and Vice President JD Vance, had repeatedly suggested that Epstein’s death was a cover-up.

What People Are Saying

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X: “The Wall Street Journal published a hatchet job article with a FAKE ‘birthday letter’ that is supposedly from 2003 … The WSJ refused to show us the letter and conceded they don’t even have it in their possession when we asked them to verify the alleged document they’re basing their ENTIRE fake story on.”

She added: “When has President Trump ever spoken like the conversation alleged in the fake WSJ story? That’s not at all how he speaks or writes. The WSJ knowingly published false information to smear the President of the United States.”

Democratic Representative Sean Casten of Illinois wrote on X: “Like all things Trump, this is simultaneously disgusting and entirely unsurprising. He is exactly who we always understood him to be.”

Technology reporter Kara Swisher reacted to the report on Thursday evening, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “Even if he denies it … it creates a feeling, and especially online, that gets amplified and really weaponized in a lot of ways. So it’s not going to end here until he releases these files in some substantive way, which he seems reluctant to do…”

What Happens Next

Trump asked Bondi on Thursday evening to produce “any and all” grand jury testimony relevant to Epstein, subject to court approval, in order to put an end to what he described as the “ridiculous” publicity Epstein has gotten over the last week.

Update 7/17/25, 11:32 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and context.