New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday blamed the media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch for stoking racial rhetoric that helped elect President Donald Trump, declaring "There is no Donald Trump without News Corp."
In an interview on CNN's "Reliable Sources," the liberal Democratic mayor asserted Trump would never have been elected "because he would have never been elevated the way he was consistently for years and years."
"There is no Donald Trump without News Corp., I firmly believe that," he declared.
"I believe in a free strong media with diverse views," he said. "I'll defend it with all I've got. But we have to be able to call out when a particular company has a corporate agenda, has a political agenda, and has very effectively changed the American discourse."
De Blasio said there'd be "less overt hate" and fewer appeals "to racial division" without News Corp. television networks or publications, calling out Fox News and the New York Post.
"They don't just dog whistle, they go a lot further than that," he said. "They put race front and center, and they try to stir the most negative impulses in this country."
Reporter Josh Dawsey, a former Wall Street Journal journalist now working for The Washington Post, disagreed with de Blasio:
as did current WSJ editor Daniel Nasaw.
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