Trump Victory, Cruz Withdrawal Cap A Crazy 24 Hours of TV News
“When you think of Indiana,” said Brian Williams on MSNBC Tuesday night, “you think of auto racing, of David Letterman — and now this is one more thing they’ve exported to the world: complete chaos in the Republican Party.” This was one of the more vivid turns of phrase deployed on TV news as its anchors grappled with the decisive Donald Trump primary win in Indiana followed by the exit of Ted Cruz from the race.
Over on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly, who as he’ll tell you, “called Indiana for Trump” three weeks ago, said Tuesday night that Trump is going forward toward the Presidency with “this new cabal to vote for him,” a cabal of “independents and populists” and not-necessarily-conservatives. Jake Tapper, who frequently pulls out nicely unexpected cultural references in these live-news situations, compared Trump’s victory speech to the kind of chatting the comedian Mort Sahl used to do, “bringing a newspaper onstage and talking about the day’s headlines,” which was a very charitable thing to say of Trump, whose speech contained sentences such as “We won with Evangelicals, there is no greater honor, we’re going to be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”
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The day started out just as peculiarly. As the hosts of Fox and Friends sat staring at the camera looking even more stunned than usual, Trump phoned in to bash Cruz by aligning the candidate’s father with, and I quote: “Lee Harvey Oswald prior to [Kennedy’s] being — you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up?… What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It’s horrible.”
Cruz, for his part, called Trump “utterly amoral… a serial philanderer… Donald Trump alleges that my dad was involved in assassinating JFK. This is nuts. This is not a reasonable position. This is just kooky. And while I’m at it, I guess I should go ahead and admit: Yes, my dad killed JFK; he is secretly Elvis, and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his backyard.” Cruz’s mini-meltdown probably only hastened his decision to get out before things got any crazier.
And by the time Trump gave his victory speech, he’d come around to congratulating Cruz for being “one hell of a competitor — a tough, smart guy.” Soon after, Trump waved goodbye and ascended to the loftiest perch in Trump Tower, while below, TV news correspondents tried to speak to the in-studio anchors, but their words were drowned out by a cranked-up recording of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up.” Mick Jagger is correct: for Trump, his party’s presumptive nominee, it’s just starting up.
