Wall-to-wall coverage of former President Trump’s arraignment this week has given the Republican presidential primary front-runner a gift of sorts in the form of nonstop media attention.
Even as Trump finds himself in unprecedented legal trouble over his alleged mishandling of classified documents, he is also settling into a familiar spot: centerstage of the daily political news cycle.
The coverage could help Trump, already the front-runner for the GOP’s presidential nomination next year, as he battles Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other rivals for the Republican nod.
“It’s obvious this is going to help him in the primary, and I think it’s an open question if it even hurts him in the general,” one Republican operative told The Hill after watching the daylong coverage of this week’s arraignment. “The laws of normal political gravity say it should, but Trump is not bound by the laws of normal political gravity.”
Trump is certainly crowding out rivals for media attention with the nonstop coverage of his legal travails, even if much of the coverage has been starkly critical given the seriousness of his alleged crimes.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said the charges were serious enough that he couldn’t defend his former boss, though he said Trump was entitled to his day in court. Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who has increasingly broken with the president who hired him, said Trump was “toast” if the accusations are proven.
Immediately after he was arraigned Tuesday, Trump’s motorcade made a stop at Miami’s famous Café Versailles, a focal point of the Cuban-American population in Florida. It was an effort by Trump to turn his day in court into a campaign event on the home turf of DeSantis.
Some of the cable news networks quickly turned away from covering his stop.
“Folks in the control room, I don’t need to see any more of that,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said as the network played a video of Trump supporters singing “Happy Birthday” to Trump at the Cuban restaurant. “He’s trying to turn it into a spectacle, into a campaign ad. That’s enough of that. We’ve seen it already. Let’s go over again the 37 charges.”
Trump’s ability to dictate media coverage is a hallmark of his brand. He often attacks the “fake news” media while simultaneously granting interviews that drive ratings and command a loyal audience of both supporters and critics.
The fact that cable networks were devoting most of their airtime Tuesday to Trump signals his continued ability to drive ratings and clicks — something that caused internal tensions at CNN just weeks ago when the network carried a Trump town hall filled with an audience of Trump supporters.
CNN’s top news boss Chris Licht has since left the network.
Some of those covering Trump on Tuesday, such as Tapper, signaled at times that they felt they were being used by the former president and sought to prevent it.
Neither CNN nor MSNBC carried Trump’s post-arraignment address from his New Jersey golf club. During those remarks, Trump made a number of claims, including that the charges brought against him were politically motivated.
“There is a cost to us as a news organization to knowingly broadcasting untrue things. We are here to bring you the news,” MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow told viewers as Trump spoke from his New Jersey golf club. “It hurts our ability to do that if we live broadcast what we fully expect in advance to be a litany of lies and false accusations, no matter who says them.”
Fox News, the top-rated channel on cable, did cover Trump’s remarks in full, in a break from recent practice.
Trump’s political ascent in 2016 benefited all of the cable news networks in a major way, a fact that his indictment and arraignment have called to mind once again.
MSNBC, known for its aggressive anti-Trump punditry, experienced some of the best ratings it has in months following news of the former president’s indictments, notching a rare weekly prime-time ratings win.
Trump has always been a difficult political figure for the media to cover. Press outlets were blamed for propping up Trump in his 2016 run for the White House, and things are no easier after four years of his presidency and the aftermath — which included the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Covering Trump’s post-presidential legal fights — all while he is running for the White House again — creates all kinds of ethical choices for the country’s largest news organizations.
“The media have no choice but to cover this, in a way that might very well appear to be sensationalist,” said Rich Hanley, an associate professor of journalism at Quinnipiac University.
“It’s going to be the leading story every time a motion is filed or anything with the case happens. It will be a narrative in many ways Trump will be able to control with his use of various legal instruments to keep this story percolating,” he added.
Some industry insiders say the media shouldn’t worry so much about whether their coverage helps Trump. If it is news, cover it, these voices say.
“This is a huge news story by any measure. It has to be covered and it has to be covered extensively,” said Frank Sesno, a longtime television news reporter who now teaches journalism at George Washington University. “People need to get over the idea that just because there’s a story out there with the word Trump in it, it’s somehow free media that’s only doing him a favor.”
