Does the departing president really want to tie himself to just one television network?
Does the departing president really want to tie himself to just one television network?
F ox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax recently aired segments that debunked conspiracy theories about voting machines altering votes from Trump to Biden, shortly after Smartmatic and Dominion raised the prospect of legal action for reporting what they said was false information about them.
“We demand that Fox issue a retraction to make clear that there is simply no evidence to support the conspiracy theories that continue to smear the company’s good name,” Dominion lawyers Thomas Clare and Megan Meier wrote in a letter to Fox News’ general counsel. “Going forward, we insist that you ensure that any stories about Dominion are thoroughly fact-checked and vetted by experienced editors. And to the extent that Fox intends to publish any claims about Dominion, we ask that you provide us with the specific details of all such claims sufficiently in advance of publication so that we have a reasonable opportunity to respond to them.”
The lawyers’ letter continues, “We are currently drafting a defamation complaint against Ms. Powell and two other defendants. We prefer to focus on holding Ms. Powell and her network of liars and conspiracy theorists accountable, rather than adding Fox News, Fox Business, or its journalists to that complaint.” The firm sent similar letters to the White House, Rudy Giuliani, Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax, OANN, Epoch Times, Lin Wood, and others.
The sight of raging Trump cheerleader Lou Dobbs calmly introducing “one of the leading authorities on open-source software for elections for his insight and views,” and then cutting to a strange voice-over segment, featuring an election technology expert declaring he has seen no evidence of machines flipping votes, is a bit surreal. And the about-face is a good example of the complications that will face any future “Trump TV” — whether it consists of an entirely new television network, or if the former president reaches a deal to rebrand Newsmax, One America News Network, or some other lesser-known television entity under his name.
Regardless of whether or not you believe such election-rigging conspiracy theories, the lawyers for Fox News and Newsmax apparently are unconvinced — and sufficiently concerned to urge their editorial departments to run the segments debunking the claims. Truth is an absolute defense in libel claims. The fact that even Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro felt compelled to participate in the debunking segments indicates that even the most pro-Trump voices in cable news fear that in making these assertions or giving them a welcoming and uncritical spotlight on their show, they risk facing massive libel lawsuits that they could lose.
Right now, the notion that Venezuelans or other forces hacked the voting machines and stole the election from Trump is a key element of MAGA mythology. Several times a day, almost every day, Trump will fume on Twitter about how “massive FRAUD took place with machines,” “Dominion Machines shifted 2-3% of Trump Votes to Biden,” “USB Drives uploaded to machines, gave Biden thousands of votes,” “Dominion Voting Machines are a disaster all over the Country. Changed the results of a landslide election,” and so on.
If and when Donald Trump appears live, on the air after the election, there is about a 99.9 percent chance he’ll claim that the election was stolen from him. There’s a roughly equivalent chance that at some point, he will claim that Smartmatic and Dominion were part of a vast conspiracy to change votes and steal the election for Biden.
And then the lawyers from Smartmatic and Dominion will rev their engines.
Television networks love big audiences and controversy that attracts them. But they don’t like expensive lawsuits. And Trump, at least in his current temperament, will be a walking lightning rod for lawsuits.
Another challenge that will face any “Trump TV” will be the question of how much Trump appears in other venues. Any network that wants to turn into Trump TV will want to tout itself as the only place to see Trump and get his take on things. Maybe the former president will still do the occasional interview with Maria Bartiromo or other Fox News favorites, but every other media appearance by Trump will lessen the exclusivity of “Trump TV.”
The new network will not want Trump calling in to Hannity or Fox & Friends or any other potential rival program — and we all know how much Donald Trump loves other people telling him what he can and can’t do, and how eagerly he complies with other people’s instructions and restrictions. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Trump has made fewer live television appearances. Yet, Trump normally yearns for the biggest audiences and ratings possible and completely dominating the news cycle. For all of his fuming about the media, he has enjoyed arguing with reporters during his White House coronavirus briefings, and the fact that they were broadcast live. Trump has reportedly even asked others if he should do The Apprentice again.
Rebranding as “Trump TV” makes sense for One America News Network, Newsmax, or some start-up. It may make less sense for Trump himself. For an ordinary politician, a cable-news gig is a good way to remain in front of politically attuned audiences while out of office. (It is now all but forgotten that John Kasich hosted a Fox News show from 2001–2007, and Mike Huckabee hosted a weekend program from 2008–2015.) But Trump will probably easily attract attention until his last breath. News organizations are already asking tough questions about how they will cover Trump post-presidency, and whether he will run a de facto presidential campaign throughout the Biden years. If Trump wants to spend the next four years effectively running for president, why would he limit himself to one network — and one that will start, at least at first, as one of the smaller ones?
Trump doesn’t want to spend the next few years trying to be the next Roger Ailes, nor does he want to be the face of a cable network à la Sean Hannity. What he wants to be doesn’t really fit in the preexisting boxes of “former president,” “presidential candidate,” “celebrity,” or “political-movement leader.” In true Trumpian style, he’ll probably cross out all the existing options and write in something such as, “chaotic force of nature.”