On Wednesday, all three network morning shows proclaimed that Donald Trump was making it “nearly impossible” for any other 2016 Republican candidates to get any media attention. On NBC’s Today, co-host Matt Lauer declared: “Donald Trump remains the talk of the presidential race with some new antics on the campaign trail. And it's making it hard for any of the fifteen other Republicans to get any attention...”
Moments later, national correspondent Peter Alexander piled on: “But with Trump stealing almost all the oxygen here, it's become nearly impossible for any of his opponents to spark momentum of their own.”
On ABC’s Good Morning America, co-host George Stephanopoulos announced: “And the candidate dominating the campaign trail right now, Donald Trump, unleashing on fellow Republicans...” In the report that followed, White House correspondent Jon Karl observed: “Trump has nothing on his schedule today, George. Maybe just maybe, giving some of the other candidates a chance to get a little attention.”
Appearing on CBS This Morning, Face the Nation host John Dickerson argued: “The people who are losing at the moment are not the ones he’s criticizing.... But the people who are far back in the pack, who need a little more oxygen, who need to be in the news cycle to help raise money, those are the ones who are really losing at the moment.”
On Tuesday night, NBC Nightly News led the charge in promoting the narrative of Trump suffocating the rest of the GOP field. Anchor Lester Holt began the broadcast: “Good evening and good luck to Republican presidential contenders desperately trying to be heard above Donald Trump, who today again managed to provoke outrage and drive a lot of the discussion online...”
Correspondent Katy Tur referred to Trump as “the one candidate stealing all the attention as his opponents struggle to get on the radar.”
Talking to Holt, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd argued:
Look, the short-term impacts...sucking up all the oxygen and attention. You'd be forgiven, for example, for forgetting Scott Walker announced last week. A major front-runner for the Republican nomination turned into a Trump afterthought. Today, Ohio Governor John Kasich, one of the deepest political resumes in the field, is losing the news cycle to Trump and the bizarre cell phone attack on Lindsey Graham and some candidates, Lester, appear to be so frustrated they'll do nearly anything. Rand Paul actually took a chainsaw to the tax code in an attempt to remind folks he is still running...
In another report, MSNBC political correspondent Kasie Hunt described the level of media coverage Trump had received:
But with Donald Trump hogging the spotlight, it's tough to break through....When Trump announced, he got a bigger boost in coverage than any other candidate and a month later, he's still getting 21 percent of the headlines, even more on network television news. Only Jeb Bush even comes close.
Hunt cited those numbers from a Monday Washington Post article that found: “Trump is surging in the polls because the news media has consistently focused on him since he announced his candidacy on June 16.”
In other words, Trump seems to be “stealing all the oxygen” because the national press is depriving it from most other Republican contenders.
