The sat truck was fired up, the crew was in place, but at the last minute Donald Trump canceled his network morning show live shots.
Trump was scheduled to do all three broadcast nets as well as Fox News–ABC and NBC in the 7 a.m. half hour and CBS and Fox News at 7:30–but, the Trump campaign informed the networks at 6:47 a.m., that the interviews would have to be by phone instead. Technical issues, they said. Network sources say the crew and transmission were provided by the campaign from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, leaving the campaign in control.
The Today show, Good Morning America and Fox & Friends went ahead with phoners, but CBS This Morning has a rule not to do phone interviews with candidates, so they passed.
Trump had already done a live shot for WWMT, the CBS affiliate in Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo, Mich. A source adds that Trump didn’t like the look of the shot, so he preferred to do phoners.