2016 Why Donald Trump gets a pass Clinton laments a media double-standard but it’s the voters who are grading on a curve.

Donald Trump’s trip to Mexico was declared a success even after he mischaracterized the crux of his conversation with Mexico’s president. The GOP nominee is now described as “presidential” for shifting from insult-filled, ad-lib performances to insult-filled scripted speeches. And he scored points for confidence and style despite failing on substance during light questioning on the most important national-security issues of the next presidency.

Even the way NBC’s Matt Lauer teed up a question during last week’s Commander in Chief forum brought one reality of this 2016 campaign into stark relief: Donald Trump is being graded on a curve.


“You’ve had a very different background, in business,” Lauer told Trump. “So nobody would expect you to have taken, over the last 20 years, really deep dives into some of these issues. But I’m curious about what you’re doing now.”

With fewer than 60 days left in this campaign, news organizations are still struggling to square their approach to covering two candidates who couldn’t be more different: Hillary Clinton, who adheres to the established rules of engagement, and Trump, a convention-busting, media-dominating nominee with an asymmetrical campaign. The result, Clinton’s advisers lament and news executives admit, is a wide gap in what the public expects — and accepts as credible — from the country’s top two presidential candidates. Trump’s bar is undeniably far lower than Clinton’s.

“I just don’t understand the reason for it,” Clinton told reporters the morning after the NBC forum. “I find it frustrating, but it’s just part of the landscape that we live in.”

Clinton’s campaign points to several pieces of evidence. She has put forth a 9,000-word plan for defeating ISIS, for example, while Trump says only that he has a plan but must keep it secret. Brooklyn argues that the media have spent more than a year producing critical coverage of Clinton’s use of a private email server and Clinton Foundation donations despite several official investigations turning up no hard evidence of corruption; meanwhile, news organizations are undercovering Trump’s $25,000 donation to Florida’s attorney general and the AG’s subsequent decision not to join an investigation of fraud claims against Trump University, for which Trump was fined by the IRS.

Over the weekend, Clinton found herself under fire for describing half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables” even as charges of racism and misogyny among some Trump supporters have been substantiated by video and print coverage of his rallies. And on Sunday, Clinton appearing weak in the heat while leaving the 9/11 Memorial — and the subsequent announcement that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia — drew alarmed responses about her health, building on one of Trump’s favorite attacks on her fitness for office. Trump’s own health and comparable age have received far less scrutiny even though he has produced only a single doctor’s letter — dashed off by a gastroenterologist in five minutes — attesting to his vigor (not to mention his diet of meatloaf and McDonald’s).

Such a double standard wouldn’t exist with any candidate but Trump, whose persistent mendacity and eagerness to bulldoze political norms makes him both challenging for media to hold to account and endearing to supporters who are excited to see someone taking an ax to a system they no longer trust.

“When he’s confronted with an inconsistency or contradiction in his own past, he glosses over it, denies it or jumps past it,” said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief and now director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. “We’ve not seen a candidate that’s not held accountable by the public for the kinds of things he has done.”

Lauer’s gentle questioning of Trump — after grilling Clinton over her use of the private email server and her 2003 vote in favor of the Iraq War — is but one example of television journalists treating the GOP nominee with kid gloves. Indeed, the media industry as a whole has become addicted to the television ratings and higher click-rates generated by Trump. Among media executives, the treatment of Trump by some networks and reporters is directly related to the leverage he holds, and he knows it.

Trump is “personally more involved in the process than most candidates are or at least admit to be,” said one network news executive, granted anonymity to speak privately. “His team is very keen on making sure he’s comfortable with who the interviewer is and the placement of the news cycle. He understands news very well. He’s more involved directly in booking than a typical candidate has been. They say yes a lot more, that’s not a surprise, a lot more than Hillary.”

Although that executive said Trump asks for specific anchors or moderators less than others, the GOP nominee is clear about which ones he prefers. It’s hard to envision Trump agreeing to last week’s NBC forum were Rachel Maddow or Chuck Todd asking the questions. And there is wide speculation among media executives that NBC’s Lester Holt, who Trump is comfortable with, was chosen to moderate the first debate with Clinton later this month in order to appease the GOP nominee. Similarly, some also believe that Fox News’ Chris Wallace was tapped to moderate the third and final debate to lessen the chance that Trump would skip it.

In February, CBS News President Les Moonves’ admission that Trump’s campaign “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS” laid bare the motivation behind many networks nonstop Trump coverage and the imperative of keeping him reasonably happy.

But as much as the networks and even print news organizations face criticism for giving Trump a pass, the GOP nominee has arguably been subjected to more constant and devastating journalistic scrutiny than any presidential candidate in recent memory. His many bankruptcies, misogynistic treatment of women and false claims of charitable giving have all been the subject of deeply reported and normally devastating print coverage. Trump has seemingly withstood the onslaught because so many voters appear willing to forgive his insulting rhetoric and policy ignorance. That’s certainly been borne out by public and private focus groups.

“We’d show voters stupid things he’s said, and they’d just shrug and say, ‘That’s just Trump being Trump,’” said one Democratic operative who has observed Clinton campaign focus groups. “It was a fairly common response, and it was horrifying.”

“People are willing to give him a pass because he doesn’t have a career in service. I think it’s the wrong approach because you should be assessing the candidate’s readiness to do the job,” said Lanhee Chen, an adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign who recalls how Romney was excoriated for “gaffes” during his Europe trip that, by comparison with Trump’s behavior on an almost daily basis, would now be considered minor mistakes. “People have such low expectations because his campaign has been so dysfunctional that when they run like a normal campaign should run, people tend to give them a lot of credit. There’s a relativism there.”

Indeed, Trump’s turn to scripted speeches, delivered via teleprompter in the month since he brought in his third campaign manager to date, has been widely characterized as a much-awaited “pivot” into a “more presidential” mode — even though the candidate’s message hasn’t changed much. During one such speech before a raucous crowd in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday night, Trump went off-script and told the crowd that Clinton could literally get away with murder.

“She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart, and she wouldn’t be prosecuted,” Trump said. “OK? That’s what’s happening.”

In the same speech, Trump drew loud applause with even more provocative bluster as he referenced an incident earlier this year in which Iran seized U.S. Navy patrol boats on suspicions the American personnel were spying. If he were president, Trump said, the Iranians “will be shot out of the water.” But on the front page of Saturday morning’s Pensacola News Journal, a banner headline read “TRUMP WOWS AGAIN,” while one of two stories covering the rally declared “Supporters: Trump more ‘presidential’ in second local speech.”

Shortly after signing on, new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway signaled a newfound focus by Trump on policy. But even after a number of speeches, his proposals appear unformed and unclear. His fiery address on immigration served only to muddle his past statements about deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants; his education speech Thursday included only one serious policy proposal; and his statements in NBC’s national security-focused forum ranged from opaque — as when he said his policy to defeat ISIS must remain a secret — to nonsensical.

He again asserted — falsely — that he opposed the Iraq War from the get-go. He argued that U.S. forces should nonetheless have “taken” Iraq’s oil — a position derided as unserious by foreign policy experts of all stripes. He suggested that the best way to address sexual assault inside the armed services would be to “set up a court system within the military,” something that has existed since the Revolutionary War. And he again expressed personal admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has invaded Crimea and murdered journalists, going as far as to suggest he is a stronger leader than President Barack Obama.

Lauer, the friendly “Today” show host whose performance as moderator was widely panned, appeared overwhelmed and somehow surprised by the sheer force and volume of Trump’s mendacity. Clinton’s campaign followed up on the NBC forum with a fundraising email reminding voters, “We cannot count on the media to hold Trump accountable all the time.”

Her campaign’s more public protests of whatever double standard exists, coming on the eve of the debates, are clearly an attempt to work the refs. But journalists’ capacities to act as referees appear somewhat diminished.

“There is no playbook in journalism for this situation,” said Jay Rosen, a professor of media studies at New York University who says Trump, unlike a conventional politician such as Clinton, is akin to a rival network. “In a sense, he’s competition as programming himself — the Trump show is competition for ‘Meet the Press’ or any show that’s likely to get better ratings with Trump than without him. So he has leverage over the networks and the network’s own people because there’s a temptation to substitute Trump programming for their own.”

Although every major news organization will fact-check the debates live, the moderators might not do the same. Indeed, Wallace, who will moderate the final debate in Las Vegas next month, has already stated that he does not plan to serve as a fact-checker. Several former moderators have supported Wallace’s assertion — that the moderator should use the other candidate as fact checker.

“Obviously, you want both candidates playing on even playing fields,” said Cristina Reynolds, Clinton’s deputy campaign manager. “We understand we’re going to have to do the bulk of the heavy lifting in making sure voters know what the facts are.”

Jim Lehrer, the former executive editor and anchor of “PBS NewsHour,” said he sympathizes with the four journalists who will be in the hot seat for this year’s three debates. “Short of waterboarding or putting a gun to [the candidates’] head, you can’t force them to do what you want them to do,” he said.

“All a moderator or interviewer can do is press the point as well” that, “Remember, this is being done for an audience, for the voter,” said Lehrer, who has moderated 12 presidential debates and is now on the Commission on Presidential Debates. “Whatever the candidate does — weaves in and out, evades the questions — the whole world is going to see that and hear that. This isn’t just three people in a room. This is millions and millions of people who will make their own judgments.”

For those who oppose a Trump presidency, the public’s demonstrated willingness to forgive lies, half-truths, exaggerations and ignorance is frightening.

“The idea that Trump’s utter cluelessness on matters of the utmost importance to the American people might not matter to enough American voters is scary,” said John Noonan, who was a national security adviser to Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign. “I’m more and more worried about it.”

