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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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El Chisme
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You make a strong point, and it makes me wonder why this story is appearing in a Murdoch paper in the first place. Is the move to retract it later and apologize to Trump to try to make Trump seem innocent and make the Epstein story go away?
Trump has been saying for days now that there's all this fake stuff and it's a hoax, so news coming out that is just very on the nose which will be proven to be fake is a perfect tactic to get people to doubt the rest. It's not about proof, but about giving people a license to disagree: making it socially acceptable to say the Epstein shit is fake with regards to Trump and other famous people.
Ad revenue. It'll get clicks.
I mean, I get that newspapers generate attention through big scoops, but I have to point out again that this is a Rupert Murdoch paper. His media has backed Trump hard for nearly a decade.
Murdoch has turned against Trump occasionally when it suits him. Idk why now though. Maybe they soured on him because of something else like the tariffs and this was the time to strike. Maybe they're trying to realign with Musk? Its certainly not directly over Trump's connection to Epstein. The simple clickbait motive should be the default IMO.
I couldn't reallt begin to speculate tbh. Could be exactly what you said, could just be something got past a middle manager cause clicks were below quota that month. I dunno