Following the lead of Chris Wallace‘s Fox News Sunday, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd told The New York Times he would no longer allow Donald Trump to do call-in interviews on the NBC public affairs show.
The Times’ Jim Rutenberg writes “for decades (Sunday shows) have served as proving grounds where candidates must show up on camera, ideally in person, to handle questions without aides slipping them notes, their facial reactions and body language on full display. It’s why the programs were named ‘Face the Nation’ and ‘Meet the Press’ — not ‘Call the Nation’ or ‘Phone the Press.'”
On Friday, Chuck Todd, the moderator of “Meet the Press,” told me he had only grudgingly allowed Mr. Trump to call in to his show earlier in the campaign, determining that he would rather have Mr. Trump take questions via phone than not at all.
AdvertisementNow, Mr. Todd said, he will no longer allow Mr. Trump to do prescheduled interviews by phone on the NBC program.
Those phoners, The Times reports, have been highly valuable for Trump’s campaign, pushing Trump to an estimated $1.9 billion worth of news coverage, far more than the estimated $750 million received by Hillary Clinton, and $300 million by Ted Cruz.