Point-counterpoint

Biden and Fox News both stepped on Trump's 2024 campaign rollout with divergent counterprogramming

November 16, 2022

.polaris__post-meta--date { display: none; } .polaris__post-meta--date.no-script { display: block; padding-left: 45px } November 16, 2022

Former President Donald Trump formally launched his third campaign for president on Tuesday. And while he was giving an hour-long speech at his Mar-a-Lago club announcing his candidacy, the White House offered a little counterprograming, posting a video from President Biden's official Twitter account with a reminder of how, the video says, "Donald Trump failed America."

Donald Trump failed America. pic.twitter.com/fylyocYcse
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 16, 2022

Trump's speech itself was broadcast on cable news networks, though as it continued past the 45-minute mark the networks started to cut away, leaving C-SPAN among the few broadcasters carrying it live. On Fox News, Sean Hannity's prime time show cut away from Trump to a panel of Trump backers praising the speech, while the speech was ongoing in the background. There was bipartisan agreement that this setup would be hard to parody.

If SNL still existed the Fox broadcast would be truly ripe material.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) November 16, 2022

This is a perfect tableau right now on Fox. They have all the top people saying how amazing and transformative the speech is. But the speech is still happening! But they're talking over it. It's that good it can't carry the live feed.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 16, 2022

They’re too busy praising him- “This is for real.” “He’s unstoppable”-To actually show us the speech.
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) November 16, 2022