Trump Isn’t Even Good at TV Anymore

Once upon a time, Donald Trump’s talents as a TV personality and pitchman were obvious to everyone—most of all himself. When he launched his 2016 presidential run, millions of Americans knew him best not from his bankrupt casinos or the gossip pages of the New York Post but as the swaggering host of NBC’s The Apprentice, in which aspiring entrepreneurs competed for a full-time job in his real estate empire.

曾几何时，唐纳德·特朗普作为电视名人和推销员的才华对每个人来说都是显而易见的——尤其是对他自己而言。当他开启2016年总统竞选之路时，数百万美国人对他最深刻的印象并非来自他那破产的赌场或《纽约邮报》的八卦版面，而是作为NBC节目《飞黄腾达》中那个不可一世的主持人，在节目中，雄心勃勃的企业家们为了在他房地产帝国中获得一份全职工作而展开竞争。

Trump routinely overstated the primetime dominance of The Apprentice, which was a breakout hit in its debut 2003–2004 season but saw its ratings steadily decline over subsequent years. Nonetheless, his rise as a candidate, propelled by his willingness to say anything to stay in the news cycle, seemed to affirm his on-camera star quality (even if it was actually people behind the scenes of The Apprentice who had edited his unscripted and less-than-coherent bluster to make him sound like a straight-talking businessman).

特朗普经常夸大《飞黄腾达》在黄金时段的统治力，该节目在2003-2004年的首播季确实一炮而红，但随后的几年里收视率却稳步下滑。尽管如此，他作为候选人的崛起，在为了保持新闻热度而什么都敢说的意愿推动下，似乎证实了他作为镜头前明星的素质（尽管实际上是《飞黄腾达》幕后的工作人员剪辑了他那些即兴且语无伦次的吹嘘，才让他听起来像个直言不讳的商人）。

But where is Trump’s TV firepower today? His latest press secretary, Katie Zacharia, lasted a mere five days in the job, ousted following a disastrous on-camera performance at her first briefing just weeks before crucial midterm elections. Trump’s own media appearances are unhinged and embarrassing even by his standards; when he’s not falling asleep at events or in meetings, he’s claiming that NATO “gave” Greenland to the US and telling rallygoers about how he checked out Senator Jon Husted’s ass.

但特朗普如今的电视号召力在哪里呢？他最新的新闻秘书凯蒂·扎卡里亚（Katie Zacharia）在职仅五天，就在关键的中期选举前几周，因其首次简报会上灾难性的镜头表现而被解职。特朗普自己的媒体亮相即使以他自己的标准来看也是混乱且令人尴尬的；当他没有在活动或会议上睡着时，他会声称北约把格陵兰岛“送给”了美国，并告诉集会参与者他是如何打量参议员乔恩·赫斯特德（Jon Husted）的屁股的。

During Trump’s second term, his administration has done what it can to circumvent existing media and bring its messaging directly to voters with broadcast content that resembles familiar TV formats. It’s not breaking through at all.

在特朗普的第二个任期内，他的政府竭尽所能绕过现有媒体，通过类似于熟悉电视节目的广播内容将信息直接传达给选民。但这根本没有取得任何突破。

On Tuesday, for example, the US Small Business Administration streamed an hour-long special called the Million Dollar Pitch Competition. The premise was that five business owners would appear before three celebrity judges (property investor Grant Cardone, rapper Nicki Minaj, and Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, whose credentials as a member of Elon Musk’s DOGE were not mentioned) to vie for the biggest chunk of a $1 million cash prize supplied by Clover Network, a fintech company that provides point-of-sale platforms.

例如，周二，美国小企业管理局直播了一个名为“百万美元推介大赛”的一小时特别节目。其前提是五位企业主将在三位名人评委（房地产投资人格兰特·卡多内、说唱歌手妮琪·米娜，以及爱彼迎联合创始人乔·格比亚，他作为埃隆·马斯克DOGE成员的资历未被提及）面前亮相，争夺由金融科技公司Clover Network提供的100万美元现金奖金中的最大份额。

While the show, hosted by actor Dean Cain, was styled as something like a hybrid of Shark Tank and American Idol, it amounted to an extraordinarily dull attempt to prove that the Trump administration is bringing factory jobs back to the US. For some reason, it featured a short video in which Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, talked to an animated strand of DNA, because “America’s DNA is small business.” The judges focused more on how animated the presenters were than the economic fundamentals of their pitch. When Marshall Sasse, the owner and CEO of a pressure valve company based in Wyoming, delivered a solid but subdued presentation, Minaj asked if he had access to any “cowgirls” who could’ve added “more punch to the pitch.”

虽然该节目由演员迪恩·凯恩主持，风格类似于《创智赢家》和《美国偶像》的混合体，但它最终只是一个极其乏味的尝试，旨在证明特朗普政府正在将工厂工作岗位带回美国。出于某种原因，节目中还播放了一段短片，片中医疗保险和医疗补助服务中心负责人穆罕默德·奥兹（Mehmet Oz）与一段动画DNA链对话，因为“美国的DNA就是小企业”。评委们更关注演讲者表现得有多活跃，而不是他们推介内容的经济基本面。当怀俄明州一家压力阀公司的所有者兼首席执行官马歇尔·萨斯（Marshall Sasse）进行了一场扎实但平淡的演讲时，米娜问他是否能找来一些“牛仔女郎”来为推介增加“更多冲击力”。

While Trump himself was not on hand for the pitches, the show featured brief segments in which participants met with Trump in the Oval Office. When the judges asked the president for advice on picking a winner, Trump replied, “You know, it’s interesting, because with The Apprentice, I had a very good term that I used: ‘You’re fired.’”

虽然特朗普本人没有出席推介会，但节目中穿插了参与者在椭圆形办公室与特朗普会面的简短片段。当评委们请总统就如何选出获胜者提供建议时，特朗普回答说：“你知道，这很有趣，因为在《飞黄腾达》里，我用过一个非常好的词：‘你被解雇了’。”

A day later, the YouTube stream of the SBA’s Million Dollar Pitch Competition had barely cracked 60,000 views. Even on Trump-friendly X, the reaction to the event was hostile, with users suggesting that the White House cared more about game shows than the cost of living and was taking its cues from dystopian fiction such as The Hunger Games.

一天后，小企业管理局“百万美元推介大赛”的YouTube直播观看量勉强突破6万次。即使在对特朗普友好的X平台上，对该活动的反应也充满敌意，用户们认为白宫更关心游戏节目而不是生活成本，并且正在从《饥饿游戏》等反乌托邦小说中寻找灵感。

Other efforts to supplant mainstream programming have also fared poorly. A month after the White House launched a 24/7 Trump TV streaming channel as part of its ongoing war on news outlets, it’s hard to imagine even the most devoted MAGA disciple watching: on Tuesday, unremarkable B-roll footage from border agents driving alongside the US-Mexico wall segued into a series of testimonials from people describing how their loved ones were raped and murdered by migrants. On Wednesday, the channel showed footage from Trump’s February State of the Union address.

其他取代主流节目的努力也表现不佳。在白宫作为其针对新闻媒体持续战争的一部分，推出24/7全天候特朗普电视流媒体频道一个月后，很难想象即使是最忠诚的MAGA信徒也会观看：周二，边境特工沿着美墨边境墙行驶的平庸素材，转接到了人们描述其亲人如何被移民强奸和谋杀的一系列证词。周三，该频道播放了特朗普二月份国情咨文演讲的片段。

As for Robert F. Kennedy’s The Real Food Show on YouTube, a cooking series in which the health secretary enlists chefs to teach viewers affordable and healthy home recipes, audience has declined since a July premiere, with only six episodes released so far. The most recent segment included Cain as well as actor and ex-bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, as though to underscore that on the celebrity front, some of Trump world’s biggest names are guys known for playing superheroes on TV in the previous century.

至于罗伯特·F·肯尼迪在YouTube上的《真实食物秀》，这是一个由卫生部长邀请厨师教观众制作经济实惠且健康的家庭食谱的烹饪系列节目，自七月首播以来观众人数一直在下降，迄今为止仅发布了六集。最近的一期节目包括了凯恩以及演员兼前健美运动员卢·费里格诺，仿佛在强调在名人方面，特朗普世界里的一些大人物都是上个世纪因在电视上扮演超级英雄而闻名的人。

If there has been any sort of a ratings win for MAGA media this year, it would be UFC Freedom 250, the mixed martial arts extravaganza held in June at a ring structure controversially erected on the South Lawn of the White House. Though Ultimate Fighting Championship lost some $30 million on the spectacle, it broke the viewership record for a live event airing exclusively on streamer Paramount+, with an average of 7 million viewers tuned in.

如果说今年MAGA媒体在收视率上有什么赢面，那应该是6月份在白宫南草坪上争议性搭建的擂台上举办的综合格斗盛会“UFC自由250”。尽管终极格斗冠军赛在这场奇观中损失了约3000万美元，但它打破了流媒体Paramount+独家播出的直播活动收视纪录，平均有700万观众收看。

That fell well short of the Super Bowl records that Dana White, CEO of UFC, had promised to break. While he was nonetheless able to declare a victory for his sports organization, White has said that he “can’t afford” to return to Trump’s backyard for an encore. Too bad for the administration, which has yet to capture a real TV audience without significant help from a producer who knows what they’re doing.

这远未达到UFC首席执行官达纳·怀特（Dana White）承诺要打破的超级碗纪录。尽管他仍然能够宣布他的体育组织取得了胜利，但怀特表示他“负担不起”回到特朗普的后院再办一场。这对政府来说太糟糕了，因为如果没有懂得如何操作的制作人的大力帮助，他们至今仍无法吸引到真正的电视观众。