Surprise: Trump is still Trump and the media still don't know what to do with him

Newsflash: Donald Trump has done what Donald Trump always does. no one saw it coming.

During an electoral gathering held in New Hampshire organized by the CNN network, the former president of the United States repeated the usual string of conspiracies that he has not stopped repeating since his spectacular departure from the White House. He claimed that the 2019 election, which he lost and Joe Biden won, was rigged; that the assault on the Capitol on January 6 was “a beautiful day” and that he did not close the door on granting a presidential pardon to those responsible for that attack, including the Proud Boys, the white supremacist group found guilty of seditious conspiracy by the usa justice.

Trump's electoral event, the first broadcast by CNN since the 2016 campaign, was a reality check for the few who expected the former president to change his strategy after his recent legal setbacks.. Both the indictment for 34 counts of documentary falsification as a result of the payments to the porn actress Stormy Daniels and the recent conviction of a jury against her for sexual abuse were dismissed by Trump with his argumentative panacea: everything is part of a witch hunt.

The mogul knew from the start that he would have the public in his pocket, given that it was made up of Republicans and supposedly undecided voters who planned to participate in the 2024 Republican primary.. That Trump played at home gave rise to grotesque moments, such as when the assistants laughed at E. Jean Carroll, the woman the ex-president sexually abused in 1996, according to Justice. “He's sick in the head,” said the former president to the laughter of the spectators. He also insulted the talk show's moderator, Kaitlan Collins, who interrupted him over and over again in a futile attempt to debunk his machine gun of demonstrably false claims.. “You are a nasty person,” he snapped.. The crowd roared and applauded..

the CNN town hall audience laughs as Trump smears E Jean Carroll pic.twitter.com/HIokiAqIom

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 11, 2023

Given the reality, already demonstrated previously, that Trump is willing to take advantage of every minute in which they put a microphone in front of him to propagate his conspiracy theories, the big question for many of his detractors in the United States is: why play along with him? ? Why did CNN, a chain that has been refuting the president's lies daily for years, agreed to give him 70 more minutes of stardom knowing the result?

One factor is evident: the tycoon is a television cash cow that the networks are not in a position to reject.. As Argemino Barro, correspondent for El Confidencial in the United States, points out, CNN's audience has collapsed, suffering a year-on-year decrease of 61% in March during its prime time. It is a general crisis of a sector in decline (Fox News fell 27% and MSNBC 12%, following the same metric) that lived its splendor during the Trump Administration due to the hatred and admiration —according to the channel— that the tycoon woke up. Covering the comparatively much duller Biden presidency has proven far less profitable..

But there is a debate beyond the economic factor. Trump is, by all accounts, the favorite candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination, as described by Collins herself during her presentation of the former president at the talk show. A recent CBS News-YouGov poll gives him a landslide 36-point lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (58% to 22%) among party voters.. No other contender reaches double digits. In a two-party system like America's, can a media outlet afford to completely ignore one of the two likely contenders for the presidency?

With its decision to hold the Republican's electoral event, CNN has kicked off a campaign in which the role of the media will be more questioned than ever.. It's not a new discussion. The network already faced frequent criticism in 2016 for giving the tycoon dozens of hours on the air during the Republican primaries.. Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN at the time, later acknowledged that they had overreached.. However, there is an important difference between the Trump of 2016, an outsider whose main magnet for criticism was his xenophobic speech, and the Trump of 2023, a former president who tried to reverse the electoral result and encouraged a violent insurrection against the US government..

There is no easy answer to the enigma posed by an electoral campaign with Trump as one of the protagonists. Despite his many problems with the courts —with several more on the way— nothing that the ex-president has done to date is a legal impediment to seeking or fulfilling another term in the White House.. Any network that makes the drastic decision to try to silence him will not only face hatred—and consequent loss of audience—from a large part of the electorate, but will become the perfect target for a former president always eager to portray himself as the victim of a unfair treatment of the media.

On the other hand, it is likely that the Democratic Party itself is in favor of Trump continuing to appear on television reminding everyone that he regrets nothing.. Biden, who has already announced his desire to repeat his term and who does not have any type of competition worth taking into account among the Democrats, is an old, unpopular candidate who unleashes few passions.. His greatest —and almost only— asset today is the same as in 2019: he is not Trump and, furthermore, he has shown that he can beat him in a general election. According to The New York Times, on the same Wednesday night, the Biden campaign was already finding out which segments of the ex-president's talk show could quickly become ads against him and celebrating that his comments would again generate rejection among undecided voters. who bet on the democrats in 2020.

In short, except for a drastic turn in the future of the Republican primaries, the media will continue to broadcast every word that comes out of Trump's mouth —and be criticized for it— between now and November 5, 2024, when the polls decide if they reject for the second consecutive time the return of the tycoon to the White House. Trump himself, the Biden campaign and the audience ratings will thank you. And the viewer? decide for yourself.