Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton held rallies at nearly the same time on Tuesday, with Trump doing an event in Virginia and Clinton holding one in Florida.
Trump, in a national-security focused Q&A with former Defense Intelligence Agency chief Michael Flynn, described the Iran-Iraq war in flippant terms, saying that the two countries would “fight fight fight. And then Saddam Hussein would do the gas. And somebody else would do something else. And they’d rest.”
Clinton, on the other hand, focused her remarks on issues like college affordability and small businesses.
Fox, CNN, and MSNBC responded by giving almost all of their attention to Trump.
The networks started carrying Trump’s remarks at around 2:15 p.m. ET. When Clinton started speaking at around 2:30, the networks relegated her to a small, muted stream in the lower right-hand corner (MSNBC briefly put both up side by side as they offered commentary):
“Let’s listen to just a little bit of this, to get the flavor of it,” Fox anchor Martha MacCallum said when turning to the feed of Trump’s remarks. Fox then stayed with Trump for 23 minutes, before switching to Clinton at 2:41 and carrying her uninterrupted for six minutes.
MSNBC carried Trump even longer, starting around the same time and going until 2:50 (35 minutes). It then switched from Clinton, who was on from 2:51 until the end of her remarks at 3:14 (23 minutes).
CNN, meanwhile, carried Trump from 2:15 to 2:42 (28 minutes) and Clinton from 2:42 to 2:50 (8 minutes).
Television news media has long seen Trump’s campaign as its bread and butter. “Go Donald! Keep getting out there!” CBS chief executive Les Moonves told an investor presentation last December. He followed up by saying that Trump “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS, that’s all I got to say.”
Working with the research firm mediaQuant, the New York Times estimated that Trump received $2 billion in free media coverage from the start of his campaign through March 2016.
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
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