WEBVTT - Part 1: James and Rupert Murdoch’s ‘bitter meltdown’ 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:08.039 Confident of victory, are there any ongoing settlementar. 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:13.160 So on that day, James and his wife Catherine, and 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:17.480 his sisters all pulled up at the courthouse in Reno, Nevada. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.360 That day is Monday, sixteenth of September twenty twenty four, 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.319 and it's the first day of the court case that 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.360 would decide the future of the Murdoch media empire. 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:34.919 They walked up. About thirty minutes later, Rupert and Lachlan 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.519 and their team pulled up. They had actually coordinated with 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.479 each other to ensure that they didn't arrive at the 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:44.919 same time, because they didn't want the cameras there to 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.600 capture the hostility that now defined their family. 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.640 Exactly what happened when Rupert Murdoch and his four children 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.800 entered that courtroom in Nevada was a tightly guarded secret. 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.200 But now one of the people in the room is 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.160 for the first time giving their account of the case 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:04.679 and how it tore apart their family. 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:07.959 The thing that James remembers most from that first day 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:11.560 in the courthouse was he got to the courtroom and 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.280 he told me that he was surprised by how emotional 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:14.720 he was. 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.080 In a rare interview, James Murdock has spoken at length 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:21.080 to journalist Mackay Coppins. 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.040 He said, he just looked across the court room at 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:26.920 his father and his brother, and these are men that 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.920 he had known, you know, his whole life, whom he 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.640 had loved, he'd shared all these memories with, and they 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:36.680 were now completely estranged from one another, involved in this 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.040 bitter legal battle. And he said the question he just 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:43.000 kept asking himself and has continued to ask himself since, says, 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.039 how did we let it come to this? And I 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.000 think that that's still a question he hasn't been able 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:48.480 to answer. 0:01:51.200 --> 0:02:00.880 From Schwarz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM Today, 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.559 staff writer at The Atlantic, McKay Coppins, and why James 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.840 Murdoch wanted to lay his story there and the bit 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.600 of details that set the stage for the battle over 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:18.359 the Murdoch Empire. It's Monday, February twenty four and this 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:24.960 is part one of our two part interview. So McKay, 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.280 to begin with, could you tell me a bit about 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.120 how your relationship with James Murdoch began and why it 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.200 was that you think he chose to speak with you 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:34.640 at length. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.840 Yeah, Well, I approached him early last year, almost on 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:40.600 kind of a lark. You know, there had been a 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.320 lot of interest in sort of the future of the 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:48.520 Murdoch media empire once Rupert stepped back and decided to retire. 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.600 And I just kind of had this sense that James, 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.560 who is Rupert's youngest son and had spent a lot 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.280 of time working in the family business, but had it's 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.520 sort of been exiled from it, might have an interesting 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.000 story to tell. I didn't know I might never met him. 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:11.079 I reached out and found myself sitting across from him 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.760 in New York and learned shortly thereafter that his family 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.239 was in the midst of this kind of bitter meltdown, 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.600 and it was happening in secret. A secretive quote batt alone. 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:27.080 The future of Rupid Middok's media empire is underway in 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:28.559 the US side of Nevada. 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.160 Nor The Murdoch, who is ninety three years old, is 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.640 seeking to update his family trust, which controls a major 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.560 portion of the Fox News empire. Well. His goal is 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.360 to ensure that his eldest son, Lachlan, will take over 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.880 the media business after his death. The family feud Pitts 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:49.040 Murdoch and his eldest son, Lachlan against the three other siblings, James, Elizabeth, 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:53.440 and Prudence, his eldest child. And I think that James 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.640 saw this as a real betrayal and because of it, 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.280 he sort of felt liberated for the first time time 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.040 to share his story and kind of talk about what 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:08.720 he had seen behind the scenes that the family media businesses. 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.000 Inside the Murdoch family, he had always been taught, you know, 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.760 never to talk about the family, never air the dirty laundry, 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:18.799 certainly not to a reporter like me. But he felt 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:20.880 like he had a story to tell and his side 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.080 of the story had never truly been represented, and I 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:24.600 think that's why he decided to talk. 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.440 And I want to talk more about that court case 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.680 Rupert's attempt to change the family trust. But first I'm 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.080 just curious, over the course of the time that you 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.160 spent with James, how would you describe his personality. 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.640 Yeah, he's an interesting guy. So inside the Murdoch family, 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.160 he's always been sort of stereotyped. I think all families 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.800 sort of stereotype their children in different ways. Right, you're 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.480 assigned roles to play. He's always been a bit of 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.119 a black sheep. He's been the rebel. As a kid, 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.920 he was the one who, you know, asked contrarian quest 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.800 at the dinner table and got piercings and tattoos and 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.799 got in trouble at school. But he's also very smart, 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.600 and I caught him at an interesting moment because I 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.239 think that he was given everything that it was happening 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:17.960 to his family, reassessing these memories he had and these 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:22.320 experiences he'd had, so he could be pretty introspective. He 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.400 could also be pretty sad. I think that he is 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.040 really struggling with what's happened to his family, his estrangement 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.400 from his father and his older brother, and there were 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.680 times when he was quite emotional. There were times when 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.960 he was very angry. Most of the time, he was 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.880 just kind of trying to process his life in this 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.200 very famous and kind of dysfunctional family. 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.040 And it's James's older brother, Laughlin, who has become Rupert's 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.640 chosen successor, but that wasn't always necessarily the case. Can 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:57.920 you tell me a bit about what James said to 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.080 you about the time in which he have been considered 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.359 the potential successor when he was deeply involved in the 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:05.400 family business. 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.760 Yeah, that's right. Well, James joined the family business in 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.920 his twenties and for a while James and Lachlan were 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.760 both working there. Lachlan was always the favorite. He was 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:20.520 kind of more, you know, charismatic and emulative of his dad. 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:22.640 He kind of seemed like, in some way as a 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.200 mini Rupert. My father's remarkable and what is achieved. 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:28.000 I think. 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.520 The I work as hard as I can, to do 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.160 as much as I can and take one challenge at 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.800 a time. And he was always the logical successor. He 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.760 was the oldest brother. Rupert was grooming him. But in 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.640 two thousand and five Lachlan quit and moved back to 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.240 Australia and decided he didn't want to have anything to 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:48.320 do with the family business. 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.840 Once considered first among equals, today thirty three year old 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.960 Lachlan Murdock is no longer heir apparent to the seventy 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.520 billion dollar news corporation empire. 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.960 And that made James the kind of de fault successor. 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:05.960 James ended up working in the family companies for twenty years. 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.200 He was an executive at news Corp, News International, twenty 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:14.080 first Century Fox and was groomed as the successor, but 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.360 it was always uncomfortable what James told me is that 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:22.080 he and Rupert really did not share a vision for 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:27.360 what these companies should be. Rupert liked to run things 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.440 in this kind of reckless way. He was a you know, 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:36.200 he's a gambler. He surrounded himself with these aggressive deputies 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.160 who he told to kind of, you know, risk everything, 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.960 act like pirates, you know, move fast and break things. 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:49.080 That that was kind of Rupert's mentality. James really believed 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.280 that a good company should have a strong internal culture, 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.360 and he was immersed in management theory, and he wanted 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.720 these companies to be run in the appropriate, proper way. 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.440 As long as we can just look at a marketplace 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:03.600 and say, if there's something that we can do a 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.520 little bit better, focus on our customer a little bit more, 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.280 create a choice where there wasn't one before, and we 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:11.040 always think that's a good opportunity. And as long as 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:12.880 we stay focused on that, we can deal. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:13.800 With all the noise around it. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.120 And so they always kind of clashed on things like that, 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.400 and they never really saw Idaye. I think on some level, 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:27.960 Rupert resented his son's obsession with respectability, and James always 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:33.040 kind of was aggravated by Rupert's allergy to discipline, and 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:36.679 so in some way they just never really saw ida. 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:43.439 Eye after the break, the final straw in the breakdown 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:45.319 between James and his dad. 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:54.760 Missus chairman, thank you very much, And first of all, 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.600 I would like to say as well, just how sorry 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:03.319 I am and sorry we are to particularly the victims 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.719 of illegal voicemail interceptions and to their families. 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.319 As for my comments, mkay, it was of course the 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.960 phone hacking scandal in the UK that really spelled the 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:18.680 end of James's ascent. In Your Peace, James is quoted 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.320 as saying that it was actually one of his sisters 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.720 who conveyed the message that he was to take the 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:26.800 fall for that. So can you tell me about that. 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.640 Yeah, right at the height of the phone hacking scandal, 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.040 which was obviously an incredibly stressful time for James. And 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:36.880 I actually got this not just from James, but from 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:39.440 Liz herself. She kind of admits to it now. She 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:43.560 said she went and met with Rupert and suggested to 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.880 her father that's a member of the family was going 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.840 to have to take the fall for this, that just 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.679 firing kind of a lower level executive at the company 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.440 wasn't going to satisfy the public outrage over this, and 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.840 she made the case to Rupert in that moment that 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.040 James should take the fall, that he was the most 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.680 logical scapegoat, that they should announce that he was stepping 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.040 down moving back to New York, and they could frame 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:10.120 the whole thing as kind of a mea culpa on 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.560 the part of the Murdocks. Rupert said, let me think 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.520 about it, came back the next day and said to Liz, 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:18.679 I think that's a good idea. We should do it, 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.160 and then said go tell him. James obviously did not 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.120 take well to this, said, if my dad wants to 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.719 fire me, he can do it himself, threw her out 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.079 of his office. But you know, that moment, I think 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.720 is so indicative of the way that this family operates, 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:37.400 because it really poisoned the relationship between Liz and James 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.560 for a long time. And one of the things that 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.120 Liz told me is that she really regrets. It's actually, 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.320 she said, one of the greatest regrets of her life 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:49.559 that she allowed her desire for her father's approval to 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:51.360 poison her relationship with her brother. 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.280 And it is very rare for Murdoch children to speak 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:59.240 publicly about their family litt alone to do so critically, 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.559 but James has done that a number of times now, 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.679 and I think most famously for Australians that happened when 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.720 he called out News Corp for their failure to link 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.960 the bushfires that we had here in twenty nineteen to 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:16.360 climate change. So how significant have these moments been in 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.320 the fracturing of James's relationship with Rupert. 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.480 Yeah, there's no question that there's been kind of a 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:27.559 succession of moments where James decided to kind of go 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.160 off script, right break from the family talking points and 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.480 say what he believed publicly. And it really has only 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.080 happened a handful of times, but that was enough for 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.520 Rupert to feel that his son was not loyal in 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:42.800 the way that he should be. You know, at one point, 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:48.600 after the neo Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, James put 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.360 out a statement without clearing it with the company. This 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.839 is when he was an executive at News Corp. And 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:58.080 Fox said that you know that he disagreed with it, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:03.520 that it was you know, terrible, and that that was 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.520 seen as him going off script. The bush fires episode 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.400 was another one these handful of episodes kind of go 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.920 against one of the Cardinal Murdoch family rules, which is 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.040 that you never talk about the family outside the family. 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.600 And James's willingness to do that even just a handful 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:24.920 of times and now in pretty, you know, great detail 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:29.520 with me, I think shows why he and his father 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.120 were probably never destined to be able to work together 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:34.600 in running the family business. 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.720 And do you think that when he does do this, 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.440 do you think that this is born out of a 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.800 sense of guilt or a genuine desire to try and 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:46.040 affect change. 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:51.120 You know, he told me about early twenty seventeen, when 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.160 he and his brother were kind of running Fox together, 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:59.160 the Fox Corporation together, that Donald Trump was elected and 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:05.000 issued hi travel ban for predominantly Muslim countries, and James 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.640 wanted to issue a company wide memo stating clearly that 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:12.679 they opposed this policy, reassuring their Muslim employees that they 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.720 had their backs, and his brother Lachlin said that he 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.280 wouldn't go along with that. They ended up kind of 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.840 arm wrestling over every line in the statement. It got 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.679 watered down, and I think that James really felt in 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.640 that moment he was being forced to censor himself and 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.000 bite his tongue in a way that he had kind 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.200 of been forced to do over and over and over 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:39.080 throughout his life. He just doesn't share his father's politics. 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.520 In many ways, he doesn't share his father's worldview. And 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.440 part of the reason he is now speaking out is, yes, 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.280 he wants to give his side of the story. Yes 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.480 he wants to set the record straight. But I think 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.000 there's also an element of almost kind of atonement in 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:56.800 all of this. He might disagree with that characterization, but 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.880 I think he does feel like he owes it to 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.200 the world to kind of tell the truth about what 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.280 he saw, and you know, obviously, as a journalist, I 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:08.880 think that's a good thing. 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:16.920 We'll be back with part two with McKay coppins on 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.200 the mind games and manipulations of the family court trial 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:22.600 and the future of the Murdock media. 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:28.200 Empire, and the lawyer kind of spent multiple hours just 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.280 firing these questions at James that were really kind of 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.120 disdainful and withering. They were questions like, have you ever 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.640 done anything successful on your own? And why don't you 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.120 take responsibility for your actions? And why didn't you call 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.000 your father on his ninetieth birthday? And things like that. 0:14:46.200 --> 0:15:07.240 You can find that in your feed now. Also in 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.160 the news today, the federal government has announced an eight 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.680 point five billion dollar injection into medicare over four years. 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.520 The funds will be used to triple the incentive to 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.400 doctors to provide near universal bulk billing for patients, as 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.480 well as for four hundred nursing scholarships in two thousand 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.280 new GP trainees a year. Labour says nine out of 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:29.680 ten GP visits will be free from out of pocket 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.960 expenses by twenty thirty. The coalition says it will not 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:37.320 stand in the way of the reforms and Treasurer Jim 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.520 Chalmers will meet with his US counterpart, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.600 in Washington this week as the Australian government tries to 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.600 negotiate exemptions from tariffs on seal and aluminum exports to 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.080 the US. President Trump has said previously that he would 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.560 consider exempting Australia from the twenty five percent tariffs, which 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.120 are due to take effect next month. I'm Ruby Jones. 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.680 This is seven AM and tomorrow Daniel James will be 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.680 bringing you an interview with the Minister for Indigenous Australians 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.760 Melandariye McCarthy about why so many closed the gap. Targets 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:09.720 are going backwards.