While polling demonstrates a majority of Americans approve of President-elect Trump’s handling of the transition process, the coverage by broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC has been almost uniformly negative. In addition to a whopping 96 percent negative tilt across their flagship evening newscasts, these networks also appear to have paid the most attention to cabinet nominees who appeared to have the highest chances of sinking.
MRC analysts examined all coverage of Trump’s cabinet appointees on ABC, CBS, and NBC’s evening newscasts from December 1 through December 14. The study primarily focused on Trump’s intended Defense Secretary (Pete Hegseth), FBI Director (Kash Patel), and Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard), though it also included the other sparsely-discussed appointments. Throughout the two week period, Trump’s nominees earned a combined total of just over one full hour: 60 minutes and 47 seconds.
Networks Were Uniformly Negative On All But The Most-Covered Nominee
Across all three networks, the coverage of Gabbard, Patel, and the handful of other nominees mentioned was entirely negative. Only Pete Hegseth, who received the lion’s share of the airtime, enjoyed a scant four positive evaluative statements, all of which cited his mother describing him as “redeemed” and “a changed man.”
To reiterate: the only positive commentary any Trump nominee received on the broadcast networks was from his own mother.
CBS spent the most time on both Trump’s nominees overall (24 minutes and 40 seconds), and on Hegseth specifically, with 14 minutes and 32 seconds (58%). While CBS had the most negative overall coverage of the Trump transition (96.7%), they actually were softer on Hegseth than their counterparts: 88 percent negative, making them the only network of the three not to cross the 90 percent negative barrier.
The second-most transition coverage came from NBC (21 minutes and 3 seconds, 94.7% negative), who, despite spending the least amount of time on Hegseth (11 minutes and 29 seconds), were also the only network to have 100 percent negative coverage of him.
ABC, meanwhile, spent 19 minutes and 25 seconds on Trump’s nominees, 90 percent of which was negative. The network devoted 13 minutes and 33 seconds of that time to Hegseth, with a 91 percent negative slant.
While Hegseth was a distant first in terms of total minutes of coverage, Patel was an almost equally-dominant second. He was the only other nominee to receive more than a full minute from each network: 380 seconds from CBS, 361 seconds from NBC, and just 339 seconds from ABC. Evaluative statements about Patel across all three networks were uniformly negative.
Coverage Followed Whichever Nominee Appeared Least Likely To Be Confirmed
Although the majority of the reports about Hegseth centered around the handful of salacious allegations against him, the networks abruptly lost interest once his chances of being confirmed started to look more promising.
On December 10, Republican Senators like Joni Ernst began to express their willingness to support Hegseth’s nomination, despite previously having appeared skeptical. Incidentally Hegseth received 37 of his total 39 minutes of coverage from the three broadcast networks on or before December 10. In other words, once his confirmation appeared probable, the broadcast networks abruptly lost interest in the scandals with which they had inundated their airwaves for the previous week and a half.
Meanwhile, Trump announced Patel’s nomination on November 30, and the following night he dominated the evening newscasts with a combined 18 minutes of immensely negative coverage. NBC senior Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake dubbed Patel a “controversial,” “long-time loyalist” to Trump who threatened to produce a “tectonic shakeup” at the FBI.
But when key Republican Senators who had expressed uncertainty about other nominees publicly indicated that they would support Patel’s confirmation, he quickly became an afterthought.
Then like clockwork, on December 11 — the day after Hegseth received that much-needed public support — Patel was back to being the most interesting cabinet appointee, earning 193 seconds of airtime that evening, compared to just 21 seconds for Hegseth.
This pattern of focus suggests that the broadcast networks were budgeting their coverage of cabinet appointees based on whose nomination they felt they had the best chance of sinking. When Patel looked relatively safe, they began hammering the various scandals plaguing Hegseth. Then when Hegseth’s odds improved, they immediately lost interest and returned to slamming Patel as a “controversial” and “concerning” pick.
The networks’ transition reporting seems designed to keep their coverage steady at a 90 percent-negative pitch. Liberals watching at home can rest assured that the media are doing their part to hamper Trump’s second term. Though without a years-long Special Counsel investigation to help them this time around, they’ll have their work cut out for them.
