This is becoming a familiar playbook.
In a separate case in a Manhattan courtroom, former President Donald J. Two months after widely covering Trump’s allegation, the national television news media reemerged in Miami on Tuesday afternoon.
The three major broadcast networks – ABC, NBC and CBS – interrupted their normal afternoon programming to cover the news. NBC sent its evening news anchor, Lester Holt, to Miami, as did CBS with Norah O’Donnell.
Cable news networks turned to their top news anchors. Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper oversaw coverage on CNN, and Bret Baier and Martha McCallum helped lead the coverage on Fox News.
Like Mr Trump’s visit to the Manhattan courthouse, the six major broadcast and cable news networks all used overhead shots to show Mr Trump’s motorcade traveling about 20 minutes to downtown Miami, where the former president There was logic.
The wall-to-wall coverage represented another day in which Mr Trump dominated the airwaves. Several panelists participating in the coverage discussed the important nature of the day.
“Whenever politics and law collide, there’s always a tension because they’re both places where fighting happens,” CBS’s John Dickerson said from a makeshift set on a balcony overlooking the courthouse in Miami. “Politics is a barroom fight, and law is more like a boxing match – there are few rules.”
Contrary to the allegation in April, there was certainly a lack of useful footage. There was no shot of Mr Trump entering the courthouse – his motorcade entered a garage – nor were there any pictures inside the federal building. Instead the networks relied on images of protesters outside the courthouse.
Fox News broadcast live images of a person the network’s anchors described as Melania Trump, the former first lady — though within minutes the network said it was not, in fact, her. “On a day like this, with so many comings and goings, it’s easy to mistake two people from a distance,” Fox anchor John Roberts said, adding that it was actually Trump aide Margo Martin.
Earlier in the day, Fox News carried a news conference by Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy outside a Miami courthouse, in which he asked other candidates to commit to pardoning Mr Trump. Five hours later, Mr. Ramaswamy sat down for a live Fox News interview with Ms. McCallum, this time in a New York studio. “You’re turning around quickly today,” he observed, before he denounced “political indictment”.
Throughout the day, MSNBC seemed to be looking ahead, displaying a graphic in the lower-right corner of its screen featuring an image of Rachel Maddow, Nicole Wallace, and Joy Reid leading the prime-time 8 p.m. Billed as “Post-Arrangement Special”. ,
The news about Mr. Trump has been good for MSNBC’s ratings. Last week, the network ranked No. 1 among cable news networks in total viewers in prime time for the entire calendar week — the first time it had achieved this in more than two years. The network averaged 1.52 million viewers, lower than Fox News’ 1.51 million viewers and higher than CNN’s average of 677,000 viewers.
It was also MSNBC’s highest viewership during weekday prime-time hours since Mr. Trump’s April humiliation.
