It’s a ratings battle that Donald Trump loves, especially considering it’s tilted toward him.
NBC News announced this morning that it will host a town hall with Trump tomorrow night, with the one-hour event taking place outdoors at the Perez Art Museum in Miami, Florida.
Thursday was supposed to be the date for the second presidential debate between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, but the event was canceled after Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis and subsequent hospitalization.
Instead, Biden and Trump will face off in dueling town halls, with Biden set to appear on ABC News from 8 to 9:30 p.m., and Trump on NBC the same evening in the 8-9 p.m. time slot.
NBC’s programming decision, critics complained shortly after the network touted it, plays into Trump’s hands.
Trump’s town hall will also air on MSNBC and CNBC, giving it an immediate ratings edge.
After Biden’s campaign announced a town hall with ABC News, Trump and his team sensed an opportunity for another media spectacle.
According to multiple sources, Trump has told close associates that he wishes to counter-program the Biden town hall and score higher TV viewership numbers, and then use such a contrast in ratings to humiliate his Democratic opponent.
Predictably, Trump also wants his 2020 team to make a big deal out of pushing out those numbers, should his hour’s ratings beat Biden’s 90-minute event.
“He looks at this the same way he looks at attendance at his rallies versus the turnout Biden gets for his events,” one of these people told The Daily Beast. “He obviously wants to blow Biden out of the water.”
To Trump aides and veterans, Trump’s TV ratings obsession is nothing new, particularly when an election is in full swing.
And it’s an obsession of Trump’s that has refused to fade even as he has dealt with increasingly dire polling data and a still-raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 215,000 Americans.
“In 2013, he had me ask Jon Karl how the ratings were for an ABC interview he did with him, asking if he ‘won the hour,’” said Sam Nunberg, a former political adviser to Trump. “Other times when he would do, for instance, Fox News shows, he would always ask [his executive assistant] Rhona Graff to ask the Fox host or staff if they could send him the exact ratings data of his interview or hit that he had just done. Sometimes he’d just ask them himself. Often, they wouldn’t send him the actual numbers but just transmit back something like, ‘They were fantastic, you won.’ He kept very close track of his ratings and always wanted the numbers so he could tweet them.”
The brazen move to counter-program the previously announced Biden town hall almost immediately sparked backlash against NBC News.
The network’s leadership faced a barrage of condemnation today after the last-minute announcement that the broadcast network—along with its sister cable outlets MSNBC, CNBC, and Telemundo, and their digital platforms such as NBC News NOW and the new streaming service Peacock—would air the live event on Thursday night during the same hour as ABC News’ previously scheduled town hall with Biden.
“It’s an irresponsible and selfish move by NBC,” said a source close to the Biden campaign. “If they’re going to allow Donald Trump an hour of air time to spread disinformation about COVID and repeat his greatest hits of lies and conspiracy theories, they ought to at least do it an hour later and let voters hear from both candidates. Broadcast networks have a role in our Democratic process, and NBC doesn’t seem to be taking theirs very seriously today.”
NBC, of course, has enjoyed a long and at times friendly history with Trump, who starred in 14 seasons of The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice—the prime time reality shows.
Officially, however, the Biden campaign declined to comment on NBC’s programming decision—perhaps not wanting to appear defensive concerning free airtime for Biden’s opponent, who is trailing significantly in public polls less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 election.
On social media, however, NBC’s critics were not so restrained.
“So, @NBCNews is presenting a Trump town hall opposite a Biden town hall? Do I have that right?” tweeted international relations professor David Rothkopf. “They are forcing audiences to choose which candidate to watch? Isn’t that serving Trump’s agenda? Couldn’t they have chosen a different time?”
Prominent journalist Jeff Greenfield—a former ABC and PBS correspondent who has been a commentator on NBC Nightly News—was among the many others who weighed in. “The decision by NBC News to run a Trump town hall directly opposite ABC’s Biden town hall is indefensible,” he wrote.
“I’m reminded of Chris Wallace bemoaning the fact that Trump’s shouting meant the American people didn’t get the benefit of hearing from both candidates,” wrote Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of Columbia Journalism Review. “@NBCNews apparently has no such view. This is a craven ratings stunt, caving to the Trumpian impulses the network helped hone.”
“The cynicism of NBC execs, who gave us The Apprentice and thus this President, is stunning and shameful. ABC should call their bluff and move Biden so he talks after Trump,” wrote New Yorker staff writer Sue Halpern.
“If NBC wanted to give Trump a platform after he backed out of the debate, why on earth would they schedule the town hall to overlap with Biden’s tomorrow night? How does that serve anyone’s interests? They should delay the Trump town hall until after Biden’s is done,” wrote actor George Takei.
Shakina Nayfack, a transgender actress starring in NBC’s new primetime sitcom Connected, was similarly unrestrained, tweeting at her employer: “Shame on @nbc. Y’all sign my checks as of late but I’m disgusted by my home network giving Trump a platform for fear mongering, bigotry & disinformation. Don’t praise yourselves for putting a trans woman on primetime then give a platform to someone who wants to abolish my rights.”
The hour-long Trump event—which is slated to take place in Miami with Today show host Savannah Guthrie moderating—is scheduled for an 8 p.m. start time on the Comcast-owned broadcast and cable outlets, the same time slot Biden’s 90-minute town hall has been allocated on the Disney-owned broadcast network.