Donald Trump on Thursday congratulated the media mogul Rupert Murdoch on his sale of 21st Century Fox’s key assets to Disney.

Asked about the deal, the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said: “I know that the president spoke with Rupert Murdoch earlier today, congratulated him on the deal and thinks that – to use one of the president’s favourite words – this could be a great thing for jobs and certainly looks forward to and hoping to see a lot more of those created.”



Trump’s congratulatory phone call comes as the Trump administration is embroiled in a heated row over another giant media deal with executives at Time Warner, which is seeking to sell key assets to the telecoms giant AT&T.



Trump has been a persistent critic of the “fake news” he argues is broadcast by Time Warner’s CNN. The justice department is now suing to stop that merger.



Last month, when the AT&T chief executive officer, Randall Stephenson, was asked about the role of Trump’s antipathy in the justice department’s decision, Stephenson acknowledged the speculation that Trump’s open hostility to CNN had sparked the legal move. “Frankly, I don’t know,” he said. “But nobody should be surprised that the question keeps coming up.”

Murdoch has a far closer relationship with Trump. He was initially critical of the former reality TV star, tweeting in 2015 that he should “stop embarrassing his friends, let alone the whole country”, the day after Trump officially declared himself a presidential candidate.

When is Donald Trump going to stop embarrassing his friends, let

alone the whole country? — Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) July 19, 2015

And according to the Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff, Murdoch once pushed the former Fox News supremo Roger Ailes to support anyone – including Hillary Clinton – rather than Trump.



But since Trump’s election, the media mogul appears to have warmed to the president and is now a regular confidante. In May, Murdoch introduced Trump at a speech in New York. “The man I’m about to introduce believes, as I do, in challenging conventional wisdom, because conventional wisdom is often not wise at all,” Murdoch said. He concluded with a hug for “my friend, Donald J Trump”.

