Trump campaign turns to online daily talk shows amid pandemic

It also adapts by tapping virtual fund raising and phoning voters, while rival Biden team said to be lagging behind

Mr Donald Trump Jr (with his girlfriend, former Fox News presenter Kimberly Guilfoyle) hosting the show Triggered on April 24. The couple, joined by Trump campaign political director Chris Carr (far right) and campaign manager David Bossie via video,
Mr Donald Trump Jr (with his girlfriend, former Fox News presenter Kimberly Guilfoyle) hosting the show Triggered on April 24. The couple, joined by Trump campaign political director Chris Carr (far right) and campaign manager David Bossie via video, discussed a Fox News story that the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden contemplated assassinating then President Barack Obama so that Vice-President Joe Biden could be president. PHOTO: DONALD J. TRUMP/FACEBOOK

As the Covid-19 pandemic has forced electoral campaigns online, the Trump campaign has adapted in a big way - live-streaming talk shows that sell the President's stewardship of the country, bash his rivals and keep his supporters fired up for the November election, now six months away.

Although President Trump himself has not made an appearance so far, many of these online events - released once a day, seven days a week - have each attracted more than a million views between YouTube, Twitter and other social media platforms, said his campaign.

The shows feature a semi-regular cast of characters from his orbit, including his children and their partners, as well as his campaign advisers, discussing theories which typically get short shrift in the liberal media, and using shorthand that Mr Trump's supporters are familiar with.

On April 24, the President's eldest son Donald Trump Jr hosted a show named Triggered, which is the title of his latest book and a term used by some conservatives to mock liberals who take offence at social and political issues, such as racism and sexism.

"We've been doing a lot of town halls getting in front of everyone, but I said we gotta do something a little bit different," said Mr Trump Jr at home on a couch next to his girlfriend and former Fox News presenter Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Joined by Mr Trump's campaign political director Chris Carr and campaign manager David Bossie via video, they discussed a Fox News story that the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had purportedly contemplated assassinating then President Barack Obama so that Vice-President Joe Biden could be president.

"Osama bin Laden essentially endorsed Joe Biden because he believed it would destroy America," said Mr Trump Jr.

Other programmes are tailored to more specific audiences.

Latinos For Trump Online, hosted by Ms Guilfoyle, whose mother is Puerto Rican, had community leaders opine on why Mr Biden was the wrong choice for Latino voters, and how President Trump was the champion of the Hispanic community's conservative and pro-business values.

With door-to-door campaigning now off the table, Team Trump is also leaning more on phoning voters and fund raising online in the absence of the glitzier fund-raising events typical in the lead-up to the election.

The online shows feature links and discount codes to buy campaign merchandise, from US$25 (S$35) Trump-Pence 2020 playing cards to a US$35 "freedom hat". Since March 13, the Trump campaign has signed up 76,000 new volunteers, making more than 13 million volunteer calls to voters, ABC News reported in mid-April.

Trump campaign volunteers made five million phone calls last week alone, said Mr Carr on Twitter on Tuesday.

Mr Biden, who ran his first campaign for office half a century ago, has been slower to adapt to digital campaigning, wrote Mr Obama's senior campaign strategist David Axelrod and his campaign manager David Plouffe in the New York Times on Monday.

Mr Biden is experimenting with live-streaming town halls from a studio in his home basement. He also charged US$2,800 for supporters to join him in a "virtual fireside chat" in mid-April.

"Team Trump knows where and how voters get their information and tests a tremendous amount of content to find the winning material their targets will consume and share," they said, pointing to an analysis by the Axios news site, which found that Mr Trump's massive digital following dwarfed Mr Biden's by a factor of 15 to one.

Mr Biden will need to embrace an array of digital media, as well as lean on the popularity of his allies - from Mr Obama to Mrs Hillary Clinton and his former rival Elizabeth Warren - to boost his reach on social media, given that candidate travel and voter contact are severely limited now.

"Online speeches from his basement won't cut it," they wrote.

But even for Mr Trump, nothing beats in-person rallies in terms of data collection and sheer levels of crowd energy.

The Republican National Convention, which 50,000 people are expected to attend, is still scheduled to go ahead in the last week of August.

Republican officials announced this week that they had hired a public health expert to advise them on how to safely host the event in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Mr Trump himself has been vocal about his hopes that his mega rallies will return.

He told the New York Post on Tuesday: "I think that would be a big - a big disadvantage to me if we didn't, if we couldn't have the rallies back. People are wanting the rallies. They want to have them so badly."

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 09, 2020, with the headline Trump campaign turns to online daily talk shows amid pandemic. Subscribe