Wolff describes a Trump Tower meeting on 14 December 2016 – during the presidential transition – involving Trump and executives from Silicon Valley companies including Alphabet (parent of Google), Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. Among the issues at stake was a potential crackdown by the incoming president on H-1B visas, the main visa used to hire foreign talent to tech companies.
Later that afternoon, Wolff writes, Trump called Murdoch, who asked how the meeting had gone.
“Oh, great, just great,” the president-elect said, according to Wolff’s account. “Really, really good. These guys really need my help. Obama was not very favourable to them, too much regulation. This is really an opportunity for me to help them.”
The book records Murdoch’s reply: “Donald, for eight years these guys had Obama in their pocket. They practically ran the administration. They don’t need your help.”
Trump is quoted as saying the companies “really need these H-1B visas”.
Wolff writes that Murdoch suggested a more liberal stance on H-1B visas would sit oddly with Trump’s hardline stance on immigration, to which the president-elect replied: “We’ll figure it out.”
Wolff writes that Murdoch shrugged as he got off the phone, and said: “What a fucking idiot.”
H-1B visas admit 65,000 workers plus 20,000 graduate student workers each year. Most are awarded to outsourcing firms, which critics say exploit loopholes to fill lower-level IT jobs with foreign workers, often at lower pay.
Promising to “Buy American, Hire American”, Trump offered varying positions on the issue several times during the election campaign. Last month his administration proposed eliminating a regulation that allows spouses of H-1B visa holders to work.
Murdoch’s remark is a rare, revealing moment of discord in his lockstep alliance with the president. According to New York Times reports last year, the two men speak “on the phone every week” or “almost every day”. Murdoch’s conservative Fox News has been a powerful cheerleader for Trump, who has frequently returned the compliment, urging his supporters to watch it.
The White House confirmed last month that Trump had spoken with Murdoch, 86, to congratulate him on the proposed sale of a significant chunk of 21st Century Fox to Disney for $52.4bn. According to Vanity Fair magazine, Trump spoke with Murdoch before the deal “to make sure Murdoch wasn’t selling Fox News”.
Trump has opposed AT&T’s attempted takeover of Time Warner, which owns CNN, the network often branded “fake news” by the president. The justice department has filed a lawsuit to block the $85bn deal.
Well, almost... 
