It's a Good Strategy, But Unfortunate

Donald Trump will not be on the debate stage on Wednesday night. The second-place contender Ron DeSantis will be joined on stage by Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tim Scott.

Instead, Trump will be on Twitter with Tucker Carlson. Remember that so long as 50% of a video is viewable for 3 seconds on Twitter, with or without sound, it counts as a view. So a host of people scrolling Twitter could scroll past the video, never watch it or hear it, and it would be counted as a view. That’ll give Trump headlines for hundreds of millions of views from people who never saw or heard him. But he will get headlines.

The next day, Trump will turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, as I predicted. That means the media will completely ignore the Fox News debate and cover Trump’s arrest. Fox has made it easier to ignore by its restrictions on the use of its debate footage, which will discourage other networks from covering the debate.

The first 2024 Republican Presidential Debate will happen on Wednesday night and, like a tree falling in the forest with no one around, people might not hear about it if they don’t engage with it.

There is, however, an opportunity for all the candidates. It is an opportunity that only Vivek Ramaswamy has seemed to pick up on. Do nonstop media avails on Thursday and Friday to talk about the debate. Sure, you’ll get asked about other stuff too. But you can steer the questions back to the debate.

Donald Trump is the dominant force in the GOP and the press has a symbiotic relationship with him. The only way to combat it is to outwork him with press interviews and access to get comparable attention. His strategy of sucking the oxygen out of the room so no one else can catch fire with voters is smart and he has the advantage of a press corps that is addicted to covering him.