Among the many things that Donald Trump can legitimately call himself, he may be most comfortable playing the role of television producer. He is, after all, a showman, and so, with a pivotal midterm election around the corner, he has defaulted to one of his most natural presets in deciding how best to handle it. By putting on a TV show.
The first-ever Republican midterm convention starts tomorrow in Dallas, and Trump has said on the record that he wants it to feel like the events that parties throw every four years to nominate their president. A big television spectacle culminating in a balloon drop that he dreamt up himself, according to the AP. He is putting himself front and center, of course, with prime-time speeches both Wednesday and Thursday night. But many Republican candidates who most need campaign help from this event are deciding they’d rather have nothing to do with it and are skipping it.
The reasons why are abundantly clear to anyone paying attention to the current political climate. Record-high Labor Day gas prices from a disastrous war in Iran and an increasingly unpopular tariff policy have led to some of Trump’s record-low approval ratings. Given the tenor of the last Republican National Convention and the specifics that were promised just two years ago? Well, this has all the makings of a near-perfect storm of a political catastrophe and backfire on not just the candidates running for office, but Trump himself.
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Things are very different today than they were in late summer 2024, and when you take a hard look, the contrast is almost hard to believe.
Two summers ago in Milwaukee, Tucker Carlson sat a few seats from Trump on the first night of the Republican convention, and that seating chart revealed more about the 2024 campaign than any speech that week. It was a less divided time for the GOP coalition, evidenced by pre-MAGA apostate Marjorie Taylor Greene also getting time on the schedule. Teamsters president Sean O’Brien got a featured speaking opportunity, which I still can't quite believe I typed. The Republican transformation from being the party of country club businessmen to a more populist appeal to C and D county trailer park vibes was perfectly encapsulated by prime-time appearances of Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock, and UFC impresario Dana White.
But the platform that was ratified by party brass two years ago tells a far more stunning and underreported evolution. For example, Chapter One, in capital letters: “Defeat Inflation, and Quickly Bring Down All Prices.” Chapter Two was the border. Then peace through strength. Inside that section, though, was a fairly banal sentence that got next to no media coverage, but should lead this week's reporting:
“War breeds Inflation while geopolitical stability brings price stability.”
That’s a hell of a thing to have on a platform two years ago, given where we are just two years later, because… well, we are all seeing how inflation has been fostered by the geopolitical instability brought about by an optional Iran War that most see as being of Trump’s own choosing.
One more time for the people in the back: “War breeds Inflation while geopolitical stability brings price stability.”
Six months into the Iran War, gasoline was up 24.6 percent in the July CPI from a year earlier. The price of a barrel of oil closed in on $100 Monday. Trump posted that gas “will drop quickly once the war with Iran is won.” To be clear, the GOP wrote down its own theory of how wars and prices work, ratified it, and I’m just quoting it. To be honest, it seemed a prescient observation two years ago, proven by just how poorly the Trump administration has handled foreign policy and inflation since getting back into office.
As for the “Quickly bring down all prices” part? July inflation ran 3.4 percent. Average hourly earnings were up 3.2 percent. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on April 15 he was optimistic about $3 gas “sometime between June 20 and September 20.” Gas was $4.11 that day. Fox News’s own headlines read $4.14 Monday night, and that September 20 deadline of Bessent's is just twelve days away.
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So tomorrow night, it all kicks off. Two nights, six hours each, 109 items on the rundown. I have spent a lot of my life around rundowns, and that many items in twelve hours feels more like a clip show designed to include as many people and things as possible with a live audience than any serious oration. The odds are overhelming that it will go long, possibly WAY long, and the organizers revealed concerns in telling Axios that speaking slots are being “kept brief for easy online sharing.”
What’s most disastrous is the scheduling mistake made months ago when it was booked. Turns out it will directly compete with the two opening NFL games, which will air right as Trump gives prime-time addresses Wednesday and Thursday night. As I wrote in this morning's Morning Frame newsletter, it doesn’t take some sort of genius media mind to predict uncharitable ratings headlines, which really don’t matter too much except to the guy who decided to do this thing to begin with. No one cares more about ratings than Trump and one can also predict leaked reports of his anger at staff for how this went down. It’s all so predictable at this point, and honestly speaks more to the Trump fatigue the nation is collectively feeling than anything else.
The speaker list reads like a Trump Org payroll. RFK Jr., Scott Bessent, Todd Blanche, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Scott Turner, Karoline Leavitt, Don Jr., Ken Paxton, Mike Rogers, the Speaker of the House. Fox News Digital noticed that Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t on it, and neither is Tucker Carlson or MTG (shocker!)
Political conventions only exist if television agrees to treat them as important events, and Fox News is the only major cable news network treating Dallas anything like Milwaukee. Multiple Fox programs will be hosted from the arena both days, culminating with an extended two-hour Hannity at 9 PM. Fox Nation will stream live each day starting at 5 PM. As for the football conflict? Kevin Liptak called it “a tough ratings challenge,” which may be the understatement of the year so far on cable news.
Trump is restaging the biggest television production of his life on two September nights when the country will be doing the one thing they are still united on: watching NFL football games. Since only one network is covering it so completely, it should be a relatively big ratings win for Fox News. But it's being held in a building where the RNC is reportedly giving tickets away. And it's being held ostensibly for the benefit of candidates who think it's politically better to stay the hell away.
Two years ago the room was Tucker, a Teamster and a rapper. This week it’s Trump’s most loyal cast of toadies: his cabinet. And on Friday morning, before anyone sweeps up the balloons, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will post the August number. 9/11 may not be the only disaster getting discussed on Friday.
I think that the price of diesel is much more important than gasoline