Despite not openly endorsing or dismissing any presidential candidate, former candidate Jim Gilmore criticized the media for giving free air time to Trump, during an interview on CNBC’s Sqauwk Box.
“They’re frustrated and their angry, and they’re looking for a radical solution,” Gilmore said. “And surely Trump is offering them a radical solution. He said ‘well, I can just go out and shoot somebody and it won't make any difference.’
“He also by the way said he didn’t have to spend any money because he gets all free broadcasting. And that's what we're doing right now. We're giving him free time right now. And that's an issue that has to be addressed in the future, as the FCC needs to address this problem of the free advertising they’re giving to selected candidates like Donald Trump.”
So far this year (as of February 20), the network evening shows of ABC, CBS and NBC have devoted 51 percent of all their coverage of Republican candidates to Donald Trump. Comparitively, the next two most covered candidates, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, received 25 and 10 percent of the coverage, respectively.
Gilmore also accused the Republican National Committee of outsourcing the debates to the networks, resulting in “a food fight that looks like the Jerry Springer show.”
When co-host Joe Kernen argued that the media coverage reflected the poll numbers, Gilmore responded that “Well it is media, and it is TV and it is silly and it's wrong to push the process that way. We're not there yet. We need to talk about the challenges that face the country and the real choice that American people will have when they are confronted with the Republican candidate and a socialist and that's really what we're talking about over here with Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.”
