The media frets while Donald Trump burns

| 7:00 pm EDT May 12, 2023
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After CNN’s “town hall” debacle, some MSNBC hosts are now openly fretting over the “correct” way to put Donald Trump on the air. Here’s the answer: you DON’T put him on the air. He’s not a political candidate, he’s a criminal defendant who’s about to be put on criminal trial in three jurisdictions.

Should the media continue to cover Trump? Of course. He’s a high profile former politician who’s now the highest profile criminal defendant of his generation. His ongoing downfall is newsworthy. But if you hand him a live microphone and help him carry out the charade that he’s somehow going to be a 2024 presidential candidate, you’re just helping him to commit campaign finance fraud.

Then again, the (entire) media is still treating Trump’s obvious downfall at the hands of the criminal justice system, and the 2024 election, as if they existed in two different universes. In one breath, a major media outlet will admit that Trump is pretty much screwed in terms of the federal criminal indictment that’s forthcoming against him. But then in the next breath, that same media outlet will begin handicapping Trump’s 2024 prospects while entirely omitting the fact that he’ll face three criminal trials before then, all of which come with prison sentences.

It’s time for the major media outlets to get real and admit that criminal defendant and inevitable prison inmate Donald Trump is not somehow magically going to be viable or even available for a future election that’s set to take place after he’s begun rotting in prison. But where are the ratings in that? Then again, CNN’s lackluster “town hall” ratings just proved that there aren’t much ratings to be had these days by pretending Trump is a political candidate either. Just admit he’s going to prison and get on with it.