Candidate Trump’s primary challenge: Winning while largely avoiding the media

It was a typical June day in New York City. The year was 2015. 

Real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump had floated the idea of running for president in the past but never pulled the trigger. So, when the announcement was finally made at Trump Tower on June 16 of that year, after that unforgettable ride down the golden escalator, something felt very different about this candidacy in that moment.

After almost every pundit dismissed his chances following the announcement, Trump would be everywhere. No network would be turned down for interview requests: There he was on “Fox & Friends” and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” There he was with Jake Tapper or Anderson Cooper on CNN. He also was ubiquitous on broadcast networks — NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “World News Tonight,” CBS’s “60 Minutes.” 

As for late-night TV, this may be impossible to believe now, but Trump actually hosted “Saturday Night Live” (no boycotts were threatened) that campaign season. He sat with late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel (where he read a children’s book, to Kimmel’s delight) and Jimmy Fallon (who famously messed up his hair to prove it was real). The conversations were mostly cordial and interesting when some benign disagreement occurred. Given how scorched-earth these hosts have gone on Trump since, watching these interviews again recently for this column was like living in an alternate universe. 

As the spring of 2016 went into full bloom, Trump continued to dominate the airwaves and, therefore, the Republican primary races. The other 17 candidates never stood a chance given all the free publicity Trump received. 

How much free publicity? Try north of $2 billion by March 2016 alone. 

“Mr. Trump is not just a little better at earning media. He is way better than any of the other candidates,” the New York Times reported at the time. 

Fast forward to Nov. 15, 2022: Trump, for the third time in seven years, announces he’s running for president. This time there was no golden escalator but, instead, a generic backdrop at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. There was no series of tweets on Twitter to his 88 million followers but, instead, some posts to his 4.5 million followers on his own social media platform, Truth Social. 

Gone now is much of the $2 billion in free publicity. Gone, too, is the biggest following of any U.S. politician on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

And gone will be the fixation on Trump that we saw in 2016, when even the cable news networks would drop everything just to show a Trump speech or rally. You recall that correctly: There even were instances when networks like CNN would inform viewers that, “In Minutes: Trump Unleashes Clinton Attack Speech” while showing an empty stage. 

But back to 2022: Trump has confined himself largely to interviews with smaller streaming outlets, conservative radio shows and Newsmax, which averages below 250,000 viewers in primetime. 

More notably, the former president has not done any interviews with the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) since the 2020 election. He hasn’t been interviewed on MSNBC or CNN since the summer before the 2016 election. His last Fox News interview (with Sean Hannity) occurred in September. As for the one time since 2021 that he spoke with NPR, earlier this year, Trump hung up as his interviewer asked a question about the 2020 election being stolen. 

To state the obvious, Trump – wisely – hasn’t done any sit-downs with any late-night hosts since well before the 2016 election. 

So, considering all those appearances on all kinds of platforms and networks that go well beyond Trump’s core base and go to the types of audiences needed to win in a profoundly divided country, if the 2022 midterm results are any indication, will Trump eventually return to his 2016 game plan of going anywhere, anytime in blotting out the media sun once again? 

It’s hard to see that happening, because every interview would be dominated by the same question that almost guarantees the conversation going off the rails, as it did with NPR: “Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen?” 

As we’ve seen with every rally over the past year, Trump will continue to insist he was robbed in 2020, making that the primary focus and takeaway of each and every interview, and will likely lose his temper when challenged. This strategy – and Trump’s inability to pivot to important issues facing the country – obviously will not be received well beyond his core base. 

Of course, the curious timing of this presidential announcement is problematic for the Republican Party. There’s still a runoff election to be held in Georgia that will determine the Senate’s division: A 50-50 Senate would keep power-sharing provisions in place, providing the GOP some leverage in the chamber; a 51-49 result, if Republican Herschel Walker loses in the Peach State, would change all that. 

So, Donald J. Trump is seeking the presidency once again. As in 2016, he’s a big underdog heading out of the gate because many Republicans fear his nomination would provide jet fuel to voters on the other side, who will oppose him no matter how bad conditions are on the ground for the Democratic Party. 

If this time feels different, that’s because it is. And given what little media and social media options are available to Trump, given that the overwhelming theme of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot in the Capitol are likely to dominate every Q&A, it’s hard to see how a Trump candidacy becomes about what it should: the issues, not the man. 

Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist.