Fox News scion James Murdoch made his intentions for the 2020 presidential race known early on Monday, dropping a $2,800 donation to South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg according to recently released FCC documents.
After several weeks of teasing a run during a breakout media tour, the Indiana mayor made it official during an announcement on Sunday. The FCC documents also revealed a number of other star-studded admirers including Mandy Moore and Ryan Reynolds.
A rep for Murdoch declined to comment.
James Murdoch, along with his brother Lachlan, are the two most prominent children of Fox News uberboss Rupert Murdoch. James is known to be considerably more liberal than his brother and father. In August 2017, he made national headlines for an email he circulated condemning President Trump’s response to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“What we watched this last week in Charlottesville and the reaction to it by the President of the United States concern all of us as Americans and free people,” he said, while also announcing a donation to the Anti-Defamation League. “I can’t even believe I have to write this: standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis. Or Klansmen, or terrorists.”
The Washington Post has said James Murdoch “privately professes embarrassment about the channel.”
In recent years, with Rupert Murdoch’s advancing age and after the ouster of longtime Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, questions of succession and the future of the network increasingly came to the forefront.
A power struggle between the brothers was ultimately won by the more conservative Lachlan according to the New York Times. Lachlan has since gone on to become chief executive of Fox News and the company now known as “New Fox” comprising assets not sold to Disney last month.
James’ longterm future with his father’s empire still remains unclear.