An essay tracing the roots of Asahi Shimbun’s hostility toward Prime Minister Abe, beginning with his public rebuttal of the paper’s false reporting on comfort women based on Yoshida Seiji’s fabrications. It reveals how humiliation, retractions, and resentment culminated in the Moritomo scandal as a political weapon.

Prime Minister Abe replied, “Mr. Hoshi, wasn’t it your newspaper that spread the lies of a fraud named Yoshida Seiji?”
2017-05-09
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Speaking of the Asahi Shimbun, when Prime Minister Abe met Donald Trump, Trump was in the middle of a fierce battle with the media.
Prime Minister Abe said, “I defeated the media.”
When the second Abe Cabinet was formed in December 2011, Hiroshi Hoshi, then a reporter for Asahi Shimbun and now the anchor of “News 23,” stood up to ask a question at the Japan National Press Club and said, “President Abe, what will you do about the comfort women issue?”
In response, Prime Minister Abe answered, “Mr. Hoshi, wasn’t it your newspaper that spread the lies of a fraud named Yoshida Seiji?” and Hoshi lost color in his face.
Asahi was humiliated in front of reporters from other media, and it was recorded for posterity.
That is why “crush Abe once more” became the company creed, but in the end President Tadakazu Kimura offered his own head and retracted the Yoshida articles, along with the separate Yoshida testimony report.
Asahi resented this deeply and still wants to avenge Tadakazu Kimura.
Then, when the name of Mrs. Akie Abe appeared in the Moritomo issue, they launched this uproar, determined to “shake hands even with the devil.”
Yamaguchi:
At Trump Tower in New York, when President Trump first entered the living room, Prime Minister Abe said, “You became president by defeating The New York Times, and I became prime minister by defeating a similar paper, the Asahi Shimbun.”
He then added, “By the way, the Tokyo bureau of The New York Times is located inside the Asahi Shimbun.”
Among the photos circulating, the ones where everyone is laughing uproariously capture that very moment.
Takayama:
That’s the best, absolutely the best (laughs).