I’ve been wondering about this too. From what I can tell, MSNBC is maintaining its anti-Trump stance but CNN is going to do a modified Crossfire strategy with a Trump liar on one side, a DeSantis toady on another and a reporter in the middle. Think about how that goes.
Puck’s Tara Palmieri and Dylan Byers discussed the possibilities today:
Tara: … Beyond Fox, how do you think the rest of the networks will cover Trump and other candidates on the campaign trail? I’m not seeing a lot of Trump, while Glenn Youngkin and Mike Pence both got “town hall” events at CNN. How do they rate? And will we see more of them?
Dylan: Well, we know what MSNBC’s posture will likely be: “a pox on all their houses.” The open question—and it will be fascinating to watch—is CNN. In its new iteration under Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN has positioned itself as a nonpartisan, news-first outlet catering to Republicans and Democrats alike. And, indeed, WBD C.E.O. David Zaslav and CNN chief Chris Licht have made a very big deal about getting a lot of Republican lawmakers to come on air, to the point where it occasionally seems like the only metric by which they measure their success (it’s certainly not ratings, or revenue).I’m sure Licht sees 2024 as an opportunity to showcase New CNN’s editorial posture. But a Trump vs. DeSantis primary campaign is going to stress-test the thesis, because both these candidates have shown a penchant for demonizing the media merely for acting as fact-checkers. Licht may believe that he is restoring trust and redefining the network’s reputation, but it’s more likely Trump and DeSantis will define it for him. Now, he may not encourage his hosts to go after the Republicans when that happens, à la Jeff Zucker, but I can’t imagine folks like Jake Tapper and Don Lemon are going to bite their tongue once lies and incivilities are back in the headlines. So it’ll be a tough line to toe.
As for those town halls, no, they don’t rate. The Pence town hall, which drew more than a million viewers, was an exception in part because it came on the heels of the 2022 midterms. But Youngkin drew just 364,000, and a mere 89,000 in the demo. That should surprise no one at CNN, because almost every town hall the network has done over the last five years has drawn roughly those numbers. And yet, Licht’s new CNN primetime strategy is to add more of these town halls, even though they’ve been a drag on the network’s already lackluster ratings. But as Zaslav said when he dropped by CNN headquarters last week: “Ratings be damned!”
Tara: That’s fascinating. In terms of covering Trump directly, what is Licht’s calculation? Is he hiring more reporters? I see journalists sourced in Tallahassee getting snapped up, like my old Politico colleague Matt Dixon, who was hired by NBC News. What do you think?
Dylan: Historically, news organizations go on a bit of a hiring spree heading into a presidential campaign cycle, or at least move more of their existing reporters onto campaigns and then backfill the vacant positions. With CNN coming off mass layoffs last year, and still needing to cover a budget shortfall this year, I imagine Licht will try to leverage his existing bench. Moreover, he has made a very big point of diversifying CNN’s broadcast beyond “all politics all the time,” so he may not feel the need to flood the zone with political correspondents the way his predecessor did.
But, perhaps the more pertinent question is: Do you think the candidates still care about how they’re covered and portrayed on CNN? Isn’t so much of their press strategy these days about going direct to the voter? And what about lawmakers on the Hill? Do they need CNN as much as they need, say, Punchbowl?
Tara: They do care about how they’re portrayed on CNN, and I know that G.O.P. leadership has been encouraging members to appear on the networks. A lot of them were banned for supporting the election conspiracies—remember when Tapper said he wouldn’t have election deniers on his show? Others were afraid to go on and face tough questions about January 6. In the end, Republican leaders felt that the midterm elections were a reflection of the fact that they weren’t able to take their message to potentially independent voters, who are watching CNN and the broadcast networks. It’s never good when the only G.O.P. voices making the arguments for the party are anti-Trump “pariahs” like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, who buck the party and leadership. It all plays into the narrative that the party is too extreme, which is hurting them in elections.
The Washington Post’s Paul Kane wrote about this phenomenon recently, in which some of the most hardcore MAGA warriors are quietly returning to making appearances on “fake news.” Take Jim Jordan, who turned up on NBC’s Meet the Press last month for the first time in four years. It’s not just him—Kevin McCarthy, Michael McCaul, Michael Turner and James Comer have all been on the Sunday shows in this new congress. McCarthy himself had not been on the Sunday shows for two years, despite the fact that they garner an audience of about 10 million each Sunday between the five of them. I think Punchbowl and other newsletters in town, like this one, are great for talking to the inside audience which eventually trickles to the outside audience. But CNN and the Sunday show are a perfect place to deploy your message to independent voters and suburban women—you know, the people who decide elections.
As for the presidential candidates, I think DeSantis et al. can probably ignore CNN and MSNBC ahead of the primary election, and continue to call them fake news. It all plays well with the G.O.P. base, for now. But I expect that before the general election, when they’re creeping to the middle, they’ll likely return to knocking on those same doors. Or at the very least, they won’t turn down their requests for a debate.
Why anyone would think that Jim Jordan and James Comer will convince anyone that the party isn’t extreme is beyond me. McCaul and |turner aren’t exactly moderates either although they may not be as “Hunter Biden’s laptop” batshit as the others. But sure, have Jim Jordan on. Just make sure there’s someone other than a supposedly neutral reporter to balance him out.
And yes, DeSantis will be on CNN if he wins the nomination and because he will have vanquished Trump they will treat him like the second coming. The real question is how they will treat Trump if he’s the big winner. I don’t think we know that yet but I’m nervous.