Trump, who is no longer ranked in gold, loses his prime-time spot on Fox News

White House

In a crucial period with the midterms in less than a month, some members of the White House fear that the president will lose a megaphone at its base.

President Donald Trump likes to brag his notes, but he does not have them anymore.

While preparing for its rally schedule before the midterms, the number of viewers for the great prime time evenings was pretty much similar to the regular programming of Fox News, sometimes lower, and the network has recently stopped to broadcast most evenings.

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Fox News aired excerpts and excerpts from his speeches during three Trump rallies last week, but largely stuck to his usual prime-time programming. On Saturday, when "Fox Report Weekend" and "Justice with Judge Jeanine" were usually broadcast, the network aired Trump's speech in its entirety, delivered by Topeka, Kansas. But on Tuesday, it was particularly difficult to find a rally at Council Bluffs, in Iowa. It has not been broadcast live on any major network and even C-SPAN has been cut off for other news. And on Wednesday night, as Trump went on stage in Erie, Pennsylvania, at 7 pm, Fox News was clinging to his cover of Hurricane Michael.

Since Trump took office, CNN and MSNBC have for the most part refused to announce their election rallies. However, like Fox News, they usually pass on all presidential speeches or comments to reporters.

Fox still broadcasts campaign feeds online, but during a critical mid-term period, some in the White House fear that the president will lose a megaphone in prime time.

A senior White House official did not know why the network would decide to withdraw from presidential rallies, claiming that officials intended to "look into the matter" and that he would not be surprised that White House Communications Director Bill Shine, former Fox News executive, is on the job. discuss with old colleagues the trend.

The loss of national coverage also concerns, if not more, the candidates on whose behalf Trump travels the country.

"This exposes us to a national audience that we normally do not have access to," said a member of the Senate Republicans campaign about coverage of Trump rallies. "We tend to see many new registrations and small donations. There are obviously people who listen [rallies] Online, but being able to be on stage with the President in front of a prime time audience is huge for a campaign that is trying to reach the Conservatives of the country who will open their portfolios. "

A source close to Trump has described the coverage decline as "a big loss for Republicans at the local and regional levels, because they will certainly not have this opportunity on other cable networks."

"If they stop taking them completely, it could create a problem," said this person. "Trump is a big media consumer, so he may be disappointed."

Neither Fox News nor the White House responded to requests for comment.

But from Fox's point of view, Trump is no longer a sure bet to beat Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham. For example, on August 30, at 8 pm, Fox News Trump's rally in Evansville, Indonesia, has consumed an hour that drew 2.536 million viewers, according to Nielsen, compared to the 2.8 million viewers that Carlson averaged at that time in the third quarter of 2018.

In 2017, when Trump gathered much less often, his events sometimes attracted more than 4 million viewers on Fox News – a figure he did not approach in 2018, according to a POLITICO Nielsen rating. This year, the numbers ranged from 2.5 to 3.5 million, by Nielsen, depending on a variety of factors, including the day, the hour, and whether there is something big on another channel .

The biggest change is the huge number of rallies. With so many people, "they do not want to give up so much prime time real estate," said one familiar with the Fox News decision-making process.

Trump's campaign speeches tend to follow a similar pattern, and this person said that network officials feared that too many repetitions would lead to lower grades. This could be particularly problematic during a peak period of news such as the first week of October, when Brett Kavanaugh's candidacy in the Supreme Court was still pending.

"They go with the road which, according to them, will give the best performance in terms of evaluations," said the person.

Piquing the problem, Fox News can not take a commercial break while Trump speaks – it often lasts over an hour – and costs the network some of its best advertising opportunities. With so many rallies and few promises of improving odds, the network is not motivated to free up airtime.

It can also be frustrating to schedule a one-hour program knowing that each block can be traded for a speech on a standard presidential strain, said former Fox News host Eric Bolling, who said left the network in September 2017 but whose program was often interrupted by rally coverage during his tenure.

Not so long ago, the president's favorite network accused its competitors of refusing to broadcast all of its comments. "The Trump rally live and only on Fox News, other networks ignore the presidential rally," said a reporter at a Trump appearance in June in Duluth, Minnesota, while CNN and MSNBC remained true to their standard programs. At least four more times between June and July, Fox News exchanged its prime time programming for live coverage of President's rallies when other cable news networks chose alternative programming.

But Trump has dramatically increased his campaign trips in the last few weeks leading up to the midterm elections, leaving Fox News to decide between full coverage of his rallies or more selective airtime for the president. A member of the GOP campaign said that the live and full-night shows would likely put Fox News under closer scrutiny. The chain has often been described as a "propaganda machine" by Trump's political opponents, many of whom claim that the coverage of his administration has sometimes been sycophant.

"If every night, Trump organizes a rally, a station carries him, you just become the president's post," said the GOP officer.

The president has not yet criticized the network for the recent changes to its programming. At his rally Tuesday night in Iowa – which was not aired – he praised his "big friends" at Fox News.

"We have a lot of good people. Do we like Tucker? He asked the crowd. "I like Tucker."