Newsmax's Trump Election Stenography

During the Republican presidential primaries, Newsmax lavished much editorial attention on Donald Trump, airing his rallies live and devoting numerous "news" articles to each one.

Oct 23, 2024

As a reliably pro-Trump website, Newsmax loves giving all the free publicity it can to him. Not only does it regularly air his campaign speeches, it devotes several articles on its website to each speech — coverage it did not usually give to other Republican presidential candidates (ones that didn’t buy airtime on Newsmax TV like Perry Johnson, anyway). Here are some examples of how this played out at Newsmax over the last half of 2023:

Faith & Freedom Coalition, June 24

Pickens, S.C., July 1

South Dakota Republican convention, Sept. 8

Republican Jewish Coalition and later rally, Las Vegas, Oct. 28

Claremont, N.H., Nov. 11

New York Young Republicans, Dec. 9

Durham, N.H., Dec. 16

Trump: ‘We’re Going to Bring Our Country Back From Hell’
Trump Coins New Term: ‘Green New Scam’
Trump Rails on N.H. GOP Gov. Sununu: ‘He’s Like a Spoiled Brat’
Trump Quotes Putin to Trash Biden on ‘Rottenness’ of US Politics (Writer Eric Mack claimed without evidence that Trump invoked Putin “perhaps knowing it will irk the liberal media”)

In a normal news operation, Trump’s speeches would warrant one article at most, since they’re largely stump-style speeches filled with his usual trash talk. But because Newsmax is such a big Trump booster, it feels it must generate multiple articles from a speech — whether or not its news value justifies doing so — to have a block of Trump headlines on its website.

Into the primaries

Newsmax ran a Jan. 6 wire article that injected some reality into Donald Trump’s ranting before the Iowa caucuses:

The visit [to Sioux Center, Iowa] came the day before the third anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021. Trump did not acknowledge the date Friday, but railed against the treatment of those who have been jailed for participating in the protest, labeling them “hostages” and saying it will “go down as one of the saddest things in the history of our country.”
More than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes for their participation, including felonies like assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.
Trump also asked at one point in Sioux Center whether there was anyone in the friendly room who wasn’t planning to vote for him, but then quickly warned them not to raise their hands.
“They’re going to say he incited an insurrection,” he said to laughs.
And over and over, he repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — the same lies that motivated the rioters.

That was followed by a relatively normal article by Jim Thomas on another Trump claim:

Former President Donald Trump escalated his attacks on rival Nikki Haley during a rally in Iowa on Friday, aiming at her rising popularity in polls and questioning her campaign’s financial backing.
Trump said, “Nikki Haley’s campaign is being funded by Biden donors,” and later labeled her a “globalist.”

That sense of reality wouldn’t last, of course. Sandy Fitzgerald was in full Trump-fluffing mode in a later Jan. 6 article:

Former President Donald Trump, speaking in Clinton, Iowa, on the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 protests at the U.S. Capitol drew cheers when he called on President Joe Biden to release those who have been imprisoned on charges stemming from that day.
“They’ve suffered enough,” Trump said Saturday night in a rally that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax.
“They have to release them. I call them hostages … Release the J-6 hostages, Joe. Release them, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe.”

Fitzgerald made no mention of the crimes the Capitol rioters committed that caused them to be in jail — instead, she gushed that Trump “pointed out that during the Black Lives Matter protests and riots during the summer of 2020, he took action.” The rest of the Newsmax crew was the same way, flooding the zone with its usual barrage of articles featuring isolated quotes from a Trump rally that day — which, of course, they are more than happy to tell you “aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax2 online streaming application”:

After Trump won the Iowa caucuses (with a little help from Newsmax’s pro-Trump coverage), it was time for Newsmax to look askance at the non-Trump competition — for instance, a Jan. 18 article touted a Newsmax TV appearance by Donald Trump Jr., who claimed that Nikki Haley was being “funded by Democrats.” Josh Hammer was ready to declare the Republican primary process over in his Jan. 19 column:

Donald J. Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president.
Some rival campaigns may yet persist, and it’s of course true that the overwhelming majority of the delegates for this summer’s Republican National Convention have yet to be allotted.
But after this week’s Iowa caucuses, in which the 45th president delivered a crushing blow to both runner-up Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and third-place finisher former Gov. and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, R-S.C., there can be no serious doubt: The GOP is still Donald Trump’s party.
He will be the party’s nominee for the third straight presidential election.
I do not arrive at that conclusion lightly.

That was followed by an attempt to clear the field for Trump by taking a shot at Ron DeSantis, despite claiming that he had exhibited “exceptional leadership and statesmanship” as Florida governor:

There is no shame in losing a primary to a former president who remains highly popular within his party. And there is also no dignity in needlessly prolonging the inevitable when there is no viable path to victory.
That’s now the case for DeSantis; following Iowa, there is simply no path to victory.
And the longer DeSantis stays in, especially given the polls showing him in a distant third in both New Hampshire and South Carolina, the more damage he does to his already weakened standing in Tallahassee — and the less likely he is to lead Florida through another dynamic legislative session.
It’s time for Ron to come home.
Doing so swiftly is not merely in the best interest of the Republican Party, as it revs up for an expensive general election matchup against an incumbent president; it’s also in the best interest of Ron DeSantis himself.

Hammer’s column drew an “editor’s note” disclaimer that “The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party or candidate on the part of Newsmax” — even though we all know Newsmax has been an aggressive backer of Trump for years and will continue to be one. Newsmax was taking other shots as DeSantis as well:

There were a couple of pro-DeSantis articles as well:

Speaking of Newsmax’s loyalty to Trump, it devoted numerous articles (as is its style) to a Trump rally in New Hampshire before the primary there, which it made sure to point out “aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 streaming platform”:

There was also an article by Eric Mack — who had done most of this stenography — noting that the rally “took a turn when a protester ran from police and charged toward the stage as former President Donald Trump called out President Joe Biden as a ‘threat to democracy.'”

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When DeSantis dropped out of the race a couple days before the primary, Newsmax left it to a wire article, then added the usual pro-Trump flourishes:

Attention then turned to Trump’s remaining challenger, Nikki Haley:

There was also a Jan. 18 article on how Haley “left the campaign trail briefly this week after her father Ajit Singh Randhawa, who is being treated for cancer, was hospitalized in South Carolina.”

Meanwhile, John Gizzi fretted over another former candidate, complaining in a Jan. 21 column that “Chris Christie has made it clear he won’t yet endorse Donald Trump — even if the former president is given a third nomination by his party” and citing other Republican activists attacking him over this.

Newsmax lavished more stenography on on Trump after a Jan. 27 rally in Las Vegas, pointing out that it was “aired live on Newsmax and simulcast on the Newsmax2 online streaming platform”:

Newsmax served up even more Trump stenography on a Feb. 9 rally at an NRA gun show in Pennsylvania:

The stenography continued — somewhat — for a Feb. 10 rally in South Carolina:

Then Trump went too far at the rally, and even Newsmax needed to go beyond mere stenography. Eric Mack — who had been doing much of said stenography — had to go into cleanup mode, while still keeping a pro-Trump spin:

In remarks sure to raise the eyebrows of opportunistic media and political foes, former President Donald Trump pulled no punches Saturday against Republican primary rival Nikki Haley, even going as far as to ask “where’s her husband?”
Haley’s husband is voluntarily serving a year-long deployment for the U.S. National Guard in Africa, but Trump boldly went there Saturday in Conway, South Carolina, Haley’s home state.
“Where’s her husband?” Trump said in his speech that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 streaming platform. “Oh, he’s away. He’s away.
“What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone. He knew.”
Haley shot back in an X post Saturday night, using an infamous – albeit disputed – attack on Trump being insensitive to service members.
“Michael is deployed serving our country, something you know nothing about,” Haley wrote in rebuke. “Someone who continually disrespects the sacrifices of military families has no business being commander in chief.”
President Joe Biden recently attacked Trump for having called World War II victims “suckers” — a claim that Trump has long denied, but Haley has now repeated.
But, in this moment, Trump was assailing Haley’s lack of loyalty in not only not endorsing him for president but running against him and refusing to end her primary campaign against the longest of odds and poor polling numbers.

Mack then uncritically repeated other Trump attack lines against Haley, then parroted his campaign talking points: “Trump surrogates have been actively urging Haley to end her GOP primary campaign, because they allege she has no path to victory and will merely burn up finite Republican donor dollars before November’s general election.”

ConWebWatch has documented how Newsmax managed to make Trump a focus of its coverage of Republican primary presidential debates despite his refusal to participate in any of them.

Newsmax's Trump Election Stenography

During the Republican presidential primaries, Newsmax lavished much editorial attention on Donald Trump, airing his rallies live and devoting numerous "news" articles to each one.

Into the primaries

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