Murdoch’s World: Thiel vs. McConnell

thiel & mcconnell
The fight between McConnell and Thiel over who will fund the Masters campaign is dividing Murdoch world. Photo: Oliver Contreras/Getty Images & Chandan Khanna/AFP
Theodore Schleifer
September 20, 2022

The fight between Mitch McConnell and Peter Thiel over who will fund Blake Masters, which I have been covering in depth the past few weeks, is now dividing Murdoch world just as it is the broader G.O.P. It didn’t go unnoticed among insiders, for instance, when the Wall Street Journal columnist Kim Strassel, who is close with the G.O.P. establishment, wrote a column on Thursday effectively begging Thiel to cut a check to Masters. “Where’s the would-be kingmaker now? Sitting in his counting house, the doors firmly locked,” she wrote, in a call-out that could have been written by McConnell himself. (The headline, not subtly, was “Peter Thiel, Losing Arizona.”)