Washington: The streaming video began and, within minutes, the president’s eldest son was musing that Osama bin Laden had endorsed Joe Biden.
Subtle, it was not. Welcome to the Trump campaign, digital edition. Seven nights a week, President Donald Trump’s reelection team is airing live programming online to replace his trademark rallies made impossible for now by the coronavirus pandemic.
Hosted by top campaign officials, prominent Republicans and “Make America Great Again” luminaries, the freewheeling shows offer reality according to Trump. The shows are an effort to stay connected with core supporters and maintain enthusiasm for a suspended campaign that has had to rewire itself on the fly. Trump himself has not yet appeared in his campaign’s shows. A review of one week’s worth of the 8 pm broadcasts, ending on the final day of April, reveals a concerted effort to test attacks on Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
But the inherently limited effort also raises questions as to whether the campaign can replace the gold mines of potentially new voter data that the rallies delivered as it attempts to reverse a recent slide in a number of battleground states. The shows are a proxy for the “Trump TV” network the president considered launching had he lost the 2016 election, and they create an echo chamber for true believers. (AP)
