NO OTHER SIT-DOWN THIS CYCLE HAS LAID BARE AS MUCH ABOUT THE CANDIDATE
The National Association of Black Journalists’ invitation to former president Donald Trump to sit for an interview last Wednesday at its Chicago convention had its critics. Don’t platform him. Don’t allow him to soft-pedal his racism. The critics’ assumption that NABJ members were somehow being manipulated proved to be unfounded; instead, we got the most revealing questioning of Trump in this election cycle. In the process, the interview revealed shortcomings in news coverage of Trump’s campaign so far.
Rachel Scott of ABC News, in addition to confronting Trump with some of his past racially incendiary remarks, got him to admit that he would spare Jan. 6 insurrectionists who assaulted police officers. (When he added “if they’re innocent,” she noted the many had been convicted.) And in a rare real-time correction, Scott didn’t let Trump get away with claiming that Democrats allow babies to die after birth. (“Sir, that is illegal in every state,” she interjected, The Post reported.)
The interview clearly unnerved Trump apologists and garnered criticism from independent-minded Republicans such as former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
Trump’s NABJ appearance also afforded Harris the opportunity later on Wednesday to rebuke his hateful rhetoric in a way that made him look like a sad has-been. “It was the same old show. The divisiveness and the disrespect,” she declared in a speech in Houston. “And let me just say: The American people deserve better. The American people deserve better.” She continued, “The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us. They are an essential source of our strength.” That’s how one puts Trump in his place without getting into a personal spat with him.
No other single interview or media encounter with Trump in this cycle has laid bare as much about the candidate or opened him up to as much criticism. Kudos go to Scott and her co-moderators in Chicago. The NABJ interview also raises a troubling question: What’s wrong with the rest of the media?
Not one question in the CNN-hosted debate with Trump and President Biden on June 27 confronted Trump about racism or antisemitism. (As to the latter, there has been inadequate coverage — certainly not on the front page of most papers or headlining cable news — devoted to Trump’s disparaging comments that any Jew who does not support him is a “fool” and “should have their head examined,” or agreement with a radio host who called Harris’s husband a “crappy Jew.”) CNN’s debate moderators did not ask about pardons for Jan. 6. insurrectionists.
Unfortunately, too many in the mainstream political media have been taken in by Republican spin. The preposterous suggestion that, after the assassination attempt, Trump might have “changed,” entertained as a possibility by far too many outlets (as The Post’s Philip Bump and a select number of other commentators pointed out), unsurprisingly turned out to be wishful thinking.
The initial reaction to Trump’s NABJ interview appeared to be tepid in many quarters. Relatively benign phrases such as “racially insensitive” to describe such patently bigoted comments serve only to normalize Trump. Too few reports noted that Trump was yanked off the stage by his own staff after 35 minutes. Reports that the event (not Trump) turned hostile or that Trump’s outbursts made this a pivotal moment for Harris wind up blurring Trump’s sole responsibility for infusing racism into the campaign. Likewise, speculation about whether his disastrous appearance was an attempt to “win back the news cycle” reduces campaign coverage to horse race speculation, rather than educating voters about the challenge to pluralistic democracy.
Now, some outlets did provide needed context. “The moment was shocking, but for those who have followed Mr. Trump’s divisive language, it was hardly surprising,” the New York Times reported. “The former president has a history of using race to pit groups of Americans against one another, amplifying a strain of racial politics that has risen as a generation of Black politicians has ascended.” The report also put Trump’s remarks in the context of his racist “birther” attempts to delegitimize the first African American president.
The mainstream media now faces a test of sorts. After the June 27 debate, the media spent three weeks flooding the zone with coverage of Biden’s frailty, in effect demanding every Democrat to defend Biden or distance themselves from him, and consulting a host of experts on aging. Failure to deploy similarly exacting treatment of Trump would confirm Democrats’ complaints that there is a bizarre double standard in coverage that allows Trump to escape appropriate scrutiny. It’s long past time to stop using euphemisms and soft-pedaling his bigotry. (As I have noted, the vast majority of outlets also have steered clear of assessing Trump’s mental and emotional state, despite repeated episodes in which his slurred speech, verbal glitches, incoherent ranting, mixing up people and bizarre references are obvious to anyone watching.)
Truth demands the free press pull no punches, even if that appears to be “taking sides.” (Taking the side of truth is the media’s job.) The NABJ journalists showed how it’s done. Now we wait to see whether others will follow their lead.
NOTE: Jennifer Rubin, who writes reported opinion for The Washington Post, wrote this article that was published in The Post on Sunday, August 4, 2024. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump” and is host of the podcast Jen Rubin’s “Green Room.”
