On March 6, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley suspended her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.Right-wing media had made it the only possible outcome.
After the chaos, lawsuits, and criminal charges that marked the end of former President Donald Trump’s administration, several prominent names in conservative politics sought to defeat a weakened candidate for the 2024 presidential nomination. But the right-wing media figures who helped launch Trump to the presidency and defended his calamitous reign went to work once again to box out any in-house threats to his continued domination of the party.
The former president should be a historically weak candidate. Trump tried to steal the 2020 election, an attempt that ended in violence. For that, and other alleged indiscretions, he is facing 91 felony charges in multiple jurisdictions. He must also pay hundreds of millions of dollars in civil fines for fraud and sexual assault-related defamation.
But for years, Fox News and other right-wing outlets conditioned their audiences to consider every investigation into the former president as a politically motivated “witch hunt” and evidence of a two-tiered justice system -- leaving barely any room for a potential challenger to effectively position themselves against Trump.
In practice, they essentially forbade any criticism of Trump, leading to a lot of direct attacks on the Republicans who threw their hat in the ring.
Trump’s MAGA media allies hammered Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis -- a former conservative darling -- throughout his campaign, calling him a “nonentity,” “the tool of the Never Trumpers,” and a “cold fish.” (DeSantis himself called out Trump’s media allies as his campaign floundered, saying “He’s got basically a Praetorian Guard of the conservative media — Fox News, the websites, all this stuff. They just don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers.”)
Haley, who lasted longer in the race, eventually came in for even harsher treatment. Her refusal to drop out before Super Tuesday earned her accusations of taking the “Democrat approach to politics,” becoming “woke” to appeal to Democratic voters, or even being a “Democrat plant” all along. Prior to that, Trump’s media allies at various points leveled racist attacks on her name and questions about her eligibility.
Another factor is simple exposure: As Media Matters has documented, Trump thoroughly dominated right-wing media coverage of the Republican primary.
From June through October 2023, across right-wing media outlets, Trump’s candidate airtime -- a figure encompassing all of a candidate’s combined interviews, live campaign event coverage, and paid programming -- routinely surpassed that of his competitors.
On Newsmax and OAN, Trump garnered more airtime than all other major candidates combined.
