Trump knows how good he can be for ratings and is proud of it. Trump's circus is back in town

Here we go again.

More than three years ahead of the 2016 election, Donald Trump is already hinting at a presidential run, and the media — though certain this time around that he can’t be serious — are covering it anyway.


Dubbed a “sideshow” by NBC’s Chuck Todd and a “serial presidential campaign explorer” by CBS News, Trump is being accused by the press of engaging in yet another publicity stunt. “Folks,” the NBC News political team flatly declared this week, “he isn’t going to run.”

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But don’t for one second think that means an end to Trump coverage. And lots of it.

Even as reporters suggest that Trump should not be taken seriously, many media organizations continue to cover him as a potential legitimate candidate, as they did in 2012. The reason for that is something Trump, the executive producer and host of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” is very familiar with: ratings.

Trump’s noncandidacy tests the traditional view at news organizations that political journalists are the gatekeepers, the arbiters of which candidates deserve serious attention by virtue of their fundraising and endorsements and the strength of their ideas. Trump is making a mockery of all that. The attention he gets shows the media just can’t help themselves when high Web traffic and ratings get into the mix. And it seems both the celebrity-businessman and the journalists are in on the joke.

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At a gathering of Republican presidential hopefuls in Iowa over the weekend, both ABC News and NBC News held interviews with Trump in which they asked him to dish on Hillary Clinton, the Republican field and his own 2016 ambitions. Trump’s claim that he would spend “whatever it took” to win the White House was picked up by several media outlets, including CNN, The Washington Post and POLITICO, which gives Trump regular and ample coverage, like many other outlets. In the past week alone, Trump’s name has been mentioned at least 200 times on cable news, up from 87 times the week before, according to the search database TV Eyes.

“Trump correctly has surmised that political reporters in general are easy marks, and he probably can’t believe how easy it is to find folks willing to cover his antics,” Chuck Todd, NBC’s political director and chief White House correspondent, told POLITICO. “I am generalizing, but [he] is always able to find just enough political reporters who have editors who think, ‘We know he is not serious, but his outrageousness will mean more clicks!’”

( Also on POLITICO: Trump trashes Chuck Todd)

“How many times do people have to fall for this game?” asked Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant. “Everyone knows this, and no one seems to be able to resist covering the spectacle, because Donald Trump — the brand — isn’t ever forced to post up against political reality. He’s a master marketer and brand manager, and he’s learned that the media loves the bluster and the bullshit, even with the full knowledge he’s not going to ever, ever, ever pull the trigger on the race.”

Trump also knows how good he can be for ratings and is proud of it. When The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein tweeted that Trump’s interview with ABC News seemed like “performance art,” Trump responded with a hand-written note two days later that read, “Perhaps Sam — But it sure gave them good ratings!”

But like the smell of tequila during a hangover, Trump’s latest musings about 2016 are being greeted with revulsion by many reporters. The memories of his 2012 media circus — from his widely panned CPAC speech to his aggressive quest for Obama’s birth certificate to his highly choreographed endorsement of Mitt Romney after he decided not to run himself — are still too fresh on the brain.

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Other journalists likely hoped last year’s campaign would mark the end of Trump’s political publicity tour. In 2011, Joel Siegel, then with ABC News, wrote an article in which he suggested that Trump was running for president simply to market his brand. And on the night of the 2012 election, NBC’s Brian Williams memorably said that Trump had “driven well past the last exit to relevance.” Yet in 2013, both networks saw fit to ask their reporters to sit down with the business magnate and inquire about his 2016 ambitions

“It’s perverted,” said Angelo Carusone, vice president of Media Matters for America, the liberal watchdog group. “ABC News previously reported that Donald Trump seemingly engages in these gimmicks solely to promote his personal brand and commercial endeavors. NBC News’ Brian Williams said that Trump had ‘driven well past the last exit to relevance.’ So, why are these networks ignoring their own reporting?”

Not everyone sees it that way. Jonathan Karl, the ABC News chief White House correspondent who interviewed Trump last week in Iowa, explained why he’s worthy of at least a little press attention.

“When someone like Donald Trump goes to Iowa to speak at a forum hosted by the Iowa Christian conservative who endorsed the last two winners of the Iowa caucuses, it makes for a fairly interesting story – regardless of whether or not you see him as a serious candidate,” Karl told POLITICO. “Of course 2016 is a long, long way off, which is why we said on ‘This Week’ his appearance had some in Iowa raising their eyebrows and some just rolling their eyes.”

Karl added, “It’s also worth noting: During the last campaign, nearly all the Republican contenders met with Trump and aggressively sought his endorsement. As you recall, he ended up endorsing Mitt Romney.”

Though lacking in political accomplishments, Trump can boast about extraordinary — and well-known — successes in the real estate and entertainment industries. Indeed, Trump’s representatives can’t quite understand how the media could even suggest dismissing a possible presidential contender who, in addition to being a celebrity, has been such a successful businessman.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s executive vice president and special counsel, acknowledged that Trump “has always been a lightning rod for the media [due to] his ability to generate enormous ratings and attention,” but said that Trump “looks presidential and demonstrates many of the important characteristics of a leader.”

“Mr. Trump is self-made, and his status goes way above and beyond what we understand as the American dream,” Cohen told POLITICO. “He has built an enormous company with tremendous cash and virtually no debt. This is something many American’s admire, and they wish our country was in the same position.”

In May of this year, Cohen announced that Trump was spending $1 million to research the viability of a 2016 run — the same amount he spent to build what Cohen described to POLITICO as “a legitimate, winning campaign road map” in 2012. That Trump decided not to run that year — or in 2000, when he was considering a third-party bid, or in 2004 or 2008, when he merely tested the waters behind the scenes — doesn’t mean he won’t do so this time, Cohen said.

“The Beltway Media should be cautious when speaking in absolutes. Despite saying that Mr. Trump will not run in 2012, in 2012 alone he conducted more than 100 interviews and turned down more than twice that amount,” Cohen said. “The proof of his intention to run lies in the million-dollar effort we endeavored upon to build a legitimate, winning campaign road map. When a formidable nominee came to the fore, Mr. Trump did what he said he would do … step back, endorse and support that individual.”

“If the media didn’t believe he was legitimate, they would never keep coming back for more,” Cohen said.

Always candid, Trump has been aggressive in attacking media personalities who question the legitimacy of his political intentions. On Twitter last week, he called Todd “one of the dumbest voices in politics” after the correspondent dismissed last week’s Iowa visit as a “another PR stunt” and wondered whether Trump would “drag it out for three years before he finally announces that he’s not running for president so he doesn’t have to turn over all of his business paperwork.”

In response to Williams’s election night remark, Trump unleashed a series of tweets the next day in which he called NBC Nightly News “totally boring” and said Williams “was never a smart guy but always passes himself off as such.”

Trump loves to pick these fights, but such trash-talking strikes reporters as the sort of thing that would surely doom any sincere White House bid. Reporters also note that Trump’s Obama birther campaign, which brought him a great deal of attention but ultimately blew up in his face, raises serious questions about his credibility.

At the same time, it is exactly this sort of say-anything shock value that makes the prospect of a Trump 2016 bid so enticing to media executives in search of ratings.

“Trump says what others only think, and thus is always interesting,” said Roger Stone, the Republican operative who is close to Trump but claims no role in the current 2016 exploration. “There is something refreshing about a public figure who says what he really thinks without poll testing and focus-grouping every word.”

Stone added that Trump “came very close to running in 2012” and cautioned that “anyone who tries to predict what he will or will not do has a high probability of being wrong.”

Though not as significant as the desire for ratings and entertainment value, Trump’s wild-card nature plays at least some role in the media’s decision to grant him attention. Yes, Beltway reporters generally agree with Todd and his NBC colleagues when they stated, “he isn’t going to run,” but they also know that Trump is capable of anything. Couple that with his love of toying with the media, and it’s hard to see how the Trump media circus doesn’t roll forward in full force toward 2016.

“Donald is tempted to run for president, he genuinely is tempted. At the same time, he loves to play us in the media, and he knows that we’ll take the bait,” Greta Van Susteren, the Fox News host, told POLITICO. “I don’t think he’ll run, but I stopped making those kinds of predictions a long time ago.”