Trump’s Press Briefings Are Great Entertainment. Keep Them Coming.

This article is not about politics. It is about the massive entertainment value of President Trump’s coronavirus press briefings. Nielsen television ratings put them in blockbuster category, comparable to the season finale of The Bachelor and Monday Night Football – when we had football.  

While it is easy to believe that audiences tune in only for information, the press briefings are also tremendously compelling for their drama, suspense, characters, conflicts, and surprises. They have all the storytelling elements that keep us yearning for more.

The Concept

As tragic as it is, this disaster was made for television – A worldwide epidemic starts in China and due to an oppressive regime that wishes to bury the problem, it sweeps across the world causing over 211,000 deaths to date. It is horrific, highly visual, heartbreaking, with political undertones and human interest. It has made-for-television heroes, villains, and intrigue. And it is eerily similar to the 2011 film Contagion that did $136 million worldwide. Fiction becomes real life. That keeps us tuning in.

The Characters

All good television concepts need characters with uniquely defined, opposite personas. It is the friction between opposites that creates drama.

President Trump is bold, brash, ego-driven, optimistic, crafty as a fox, and driven by gut instincts. He shoots from the hip, says what’s on his mind, and can be reckless. Supporters love him for these qualities and detractors hate him for them. His persona sets the stage for the stars that cross his orbit.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and one of the lead members of Trump’s task force, is the perfect opposite. He is medically trained, fact-based, methodological, highly cautious, realistic, and a bit of an egghead. In movies, he’s the kid in high school who got jammed into a locker by someone like Trump, and because of that, he now seeks revenge upon the world by telling everyone on the planet to go into their rooms for months. Dr. Fauci recently discovered that thousands of people signed a petition calling for him to be named People magazine’s Sexist Man Alive (no kidding). The nerd wins. This is great television.

Enter Dr. Deborah Birx, the Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the task force. She is smart, unflappable, and even keel, the glue that holds it together. Optimistic Trump will tell us that everything is fine, Dr. Fauci will tell us that we may die if we don’t wash our hands and stay home, but Dr. Birx will assure us that if we follow her directions we will survive. She’s the intelligent, comforting mom. She also adds color with her amazing scarf collection that makes her the fashionista of the team and a popular figure on social media. What will she wear next? It’s The West Wing meets Project Runway. 

Vice President Pence has the role of the intensely loyal wingman, mediator, juggler, always on the straight and narrow, always moving projects forward, cleaning up messes, and running around to catch stuff before it breaks. He’s the go-to guy to get things done under pressure.

The White House press corps is vital to the storyline because they create the conflict. They are the heroes or the villains depending on your predisposition. They are confrontational, accusatory, relentless, unsatisfied, looking for controversy, and almost as ego-driven as Trump.  Drama.

There are an array of secondary characters that come and go in each episode (yes, I said “episode”) that include Cabinet secretaries, generals, business leaders, and healthcare professionals. They talk about health, the economy, the business response, the supply chain, the stockpile, and the number of ventilators and nose swabs. They add variety.

The Crucible

Great storytelling has a device known as the crucible, a dramatic space in which opposing forces are locked in painful combat, with each trying to vanquish the other. The White House press briefing room has become that tragic crucible where the press and the president battle. A crucible need not have heroes or villains, though each side may percieve it as such. It can be comprised solely of sincere people, trying to do their jobs, though their diverse personas and goals make them enemies. They might even have the same goal, but their means to that end are drastically different. It’s this great conflict that keeps us engaged, keeps us watching. As sad as it is to recognize, human drama is compelling entertainment.

The Episodic Format

Viewed through the lens of a television show, the press briefings work extremely well. Each episode begins with President Trump boasting about past accomplishments. This brings viewers up-to-date, like watching previous scenes of Westworld before a new episode begins. He sprinkles in a couple new items to whet our appetite. He segues to smart, fashionista Dr. Birx to update us on the team’s efforts to thwart the virus and “flatten of the curve.” All great shows have taglines.  Dr. Fauci often comes next to scare the populace into submission by telling them that the virus is coming back in the fall, so be prepared for Season 2 of the show.

But the real drama starts when Trump comes to the podium once again. This is the wild card moment because you never know what might happen next. Suspense hangs in the air. A recent example is the “Lysol” episode that aired on April 23, 2020.  The incident began as one of the secondary characters, Bill Bryan, who is the Undersecretary for Science and Technology in the Department of Homeland Security, gave a rather insightful presentation on things that kill the virus. It included sunlight, increased heat and humidity. Importantly, he also stated that, “We are also testing disinfectants — readily available. We’ve tested bleach. We’ve tested Isopropyl Alcohol on the virus specifically in saliva – respiratory fluids. And I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes and Isopropyl Alcohol will kill the virus in thirty seconds.”

It was fascinating, and appeared to be harmless enough. But then Trump comes to the podium and bang! “I see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute – one minute – is there a way we can do something like that by an injection inside or almost a cleaning because you see it gets in the lungs?”

This is a show-stopper. This was Trump thinking out loud, unfiltered, sincerely trying to find a solution to a horrific problem, but without realizing the potentially reckless consequences of his non-medical opinion.

Reporters pounced during Q&A as one asked Bryan, “The President mentioned the use of a cleaner. There’s no scenario that it can be injected into a person, is there?” Bryan said it was not his job to do that. President Trump kept his idea alive with, “Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t work.” When he is pushed by another reporter on the topic of treatments, he fires back, “I’m the President and you’re fake news.” 

This is conflict and drama, the makings of life and great entertainment, deep inside the crucible. After the briefing, the media went crazy, blogs lit up, and physicians on cable news condemned the idea of injecting bleach as a cure. The White House issued an explanation that Trump was being sarcastic, and the makers of Lysol issued a statement cautioning that its products should not be injected or ingested. Great episodes extend the conversation.

When Dr. Birx was later asked by Jake Tapper of CNN about the incident, she said that she chatted with Trump afterwards, and he understood that bleach was not a treatment. But post explanations are not interesting to audiences. And unfortunately for her, some believe she is not confronting Trump enough on his science-related comments, and they want her out. More conflict. More drama.

Other great episodes have included No One Has Died…Yet, Where Are My Ventilators?, The CHINESE Virus, Where’s Dr. Fauci?, Scarves, Love Cuomo, Hate Cuomo Now, MyPillow Guy, But I Restricted Travel From China, Testing-Testing, Where’s Dr. Fauci 2?, Hydroxychloroquine – Miracle Cure, The Check Isn’t In The Mail, I Want My PPE!, Millions Could Die – Wrong, Where’s Joe Biden?, WHO Is Toast, Economy vs. Lives – Pick One, and Liberate Michigan.

It was reported on Monday that there would be no press conference, and the world went wild. Soon thereafter the White House decided there would be a press conference. Whew! More drama. Some cable channels have even debated whether they should show the briefings at all, believing that they have become Trump rallies. But the briefings are incredibly informative. They convey a wealth of knowledge about healthcare, viruses, businesses, supply chain, politics, government, and humanity, and we are able to watch them live, raw and unfiltered. They add sunlight to the workings of government. Great entertainment does that, too. Keep them coming.