And there’s a good chance that could happen. Trump has been steadily climbing in national polls, amassing as much as a 40-point lead over Ron DeSantis, with others mired in the single digits. This rapid rise comes despite a criminal indictment in the Stormy Daniels case and a $5 million verdict against him in the E. Jean Carroll suit – or maybe that further convinced his loyalists that he is being persecuted.

But it’s impossible to ignore the avalanche of bad press that has fallen upon DeSantis. Whatever his shortcomings as a candidate, the media’s sustained assault on the Florida governor feels almost orchestrated.

From the New York Times on his use of private jets from undisclosed pals to Politico likening his wife to Lady Macbeth, DeSantis is getting hammered by a media establishment that he openly disdains. DeSantis has a “lovability” problem, a CNN columnist says. He’s gone from media favorite to media piñata.

Nothing matters more to most in the media than keeping the former president from an encore performance. When DeSantis looked like a giant-killer, the consensus was great, he’ll knock off Donald and our future national nightmare will never materialize.

But now that the governor has been losing traction, in part by letting Trump define him without hitting back, the media mood has changed. It’s great if Trump is the nominee, the thinking goes, because he’d be the easiest opponent for Biden to beat.

President Biden calls Florida ban on gender-affirming medical care ‘close to sinful’ in ‘The Daily Show’ interview. (CBS/Paramount Plus/’The Daily Show’/YouTube)

Be careful what you wish for, because in 2016 almost everyone thought Hillary Clinton would waltz into the White House.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on April 27, 2023 in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

I’m increasingly thinking this is a more visceral threat to his reelection than I had realized – and imagine if he was running against a Floridian who’s 44.

DESANTIS, MUSK BASH THE MEDIA – AFTER EMBARRASSMENT OF TWITTER CHAT CRASHING

There’s wide agreement that DeSantis needs to loosen up and tell his personal story. Peggy Noonan, the Wall Street Journal columnist who was a top speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, is in this camp:

The governor, who yesterday went to Iowa, where a strong performance could be a game-changer, has time to learn how to work the county fair circuit. But the press now seems to have a major chip on its collective shoulder about DeSantis. That helps explain why he generally avoids mainstream outlets, but they would also be a way of getting out the story he needs to tell. 

He first declared last week on Truth Social that he’s inclined to skip one or both of the first two debates, and he blamed media hostility:

“When you’re leading by seemingly insurmountable numbers, and you have hostile Networks with angry, TRUMP & MAGA hating anchors asking the ‘questions,’ why subject yourself to being libeled and abused?”

That seemed like a pretty forceful statement that he’s going to blow off the early debates – the first one on Fox News, set for August – despite the schedule set by the RNC.

FADING NEWSROOMS, BLATANT BIAS AND A WAR WITH TRUMP HAS RAVAGED THE BUSINESS

Former President Donald Trump speaks to guests at the 2023 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum on April 14, 2023, in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The former president soon offered a different explanation during a New Hampshire swing: “I have people at one half of 1%, one quarter of 1%, 1%, 3%, 2%, 4%, 7%. And Desanctis (sic) is very low and crashing… We’re at 60 and 70%. Why would you do that?”

CAN WHITE HOUSE TURN STRUGGLING KAMALA HARRIS INTO AN ASSET?

This drew some modest coverage. I found his stance so striking that I devoted a segment to it on last Sunday’s “Media Buzz.”

Then the New York Times did additional reporting for a Tuesday piece, and suddenly the story was everywhere: CNN, NBC, Washington Post, the Hill.

The New York Times Building in Midtown Manhattan.  (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins)

Before anyone starts hyperventilating, candidates in both parties play this game.

Does anyone really expect President Biden to debate Marianne Williamson and Robert Kennedy Jr.? RFK, the anti-vax advocate, garnered 19% in a recent poll, but he’s got the last name and provides a safe harbor for the anti-Biden vote. I can’t imagine the President of the United States debating them because he’s a lock for the nomination.

Last fall, Democrat Katie Hobbs won the Arizona governorship in part by refusing to debate Kari Lake, the Republican with a quarter-century of TV experience. Hobbs took flak, even after arguing she didn’t want to give a platform to Lake’s election denialism, but probably would have lost the tight race had she debated. 

TRUMP DECLARES WAR ON FLORIDA IN HEATED ATTEMPT TO TARNISH DESANTIS

Is it better for democracy when candidates face off? Of course it is. But you will not be shocked to hear that candidates are primarily concerned with winning. 

In the Times story, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan quote five unnamed sources in touch with Trump as reporting he said “I’m up by too many points,” and “if he does a debate this early with candidates who are polling in the single digits, there’s no upside for him.”

And then there’s what the piece describes as “revenge.”

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a 2024 election campaign rally in Waco, Texas, March 25, 2023. (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump doesn’t want to do the second debate, at the Reagan Presidential Library, because the chairman of its board of trustees is Fred Ryan, who is also the publisher of the Washington Post, a paper for which the former president does not have warm feelings.

As for the Fox debate, Trump has made no secret of his frustration with the network ever since it projected Biden the winner in Arizona, and the news division’s refusal to accept his unfounded election-fraud allegations. The Times says Trump doesn’t want to be questioned by chief political anchor Bret Baier – one of the fairest journalists I know and someone who has interviewed him in the past.

The ex-president, by the way, agreed to do a town hall next week with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, which could be seen as a swipe at Fox. Trump hasn’t been on the network he bashed as “fake news” for nearly seven years, but that was then and this is now.

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Trump’s absence from the early debates would obviously shrink the audience. That happened when he blew off a Fox debate in 2016, having been angry at Megyn Kelly’s question about his derogatory comments toward women in a debate the previous year. 

Unless Ron DeSantis, his closest competitor, manages to pull within striking distance, Trump may well carry out his threat. Or he may just be creating yet another media narrative to build interest in his return to the debate stage.

Howard Kurtz is the host of FOX News Channel’s MediaBuzz (Sundays 11 a.m.-12 p.m. ET). Based in Washington, D.C., he joined the network in July 2013 and regularly appears on Special Report with Bret Baier and other programs.

“Please refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest,” Judge Juan Merchan cautioned at Tuesday’s arraignment of the former president. He asked Trump to avoid language that could “jeopardize the rule of law.”

While the admonition applied to both sides, it was prosecutors who jumped in to say they were worried about Trump’s inflammatory style, citing his link to photos showing him holding a baseball bat next to a shot of Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg’s head. Trump’s attorneys said that as a candidate, he had the right to defend himself and counter illegal leaks.

Once Trump flew back to Florida from New York, the question hung in the air: Would he follow the judge’s advice?

AS EXPECTED, TRUMP INDICTMENT ALL ABOUT FALSIFYING RECORDS – FOR HUSH MONEY

Judge Juan Merchan, far right, addresses former President Donald Trump, far left, regarding his rights and requirements, Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in a Manhattan courtroom in New York. Defense attorney Joseph Tacopina, center, looked on.  (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

This is, after all, the man whose aides, advisers and even family members have been trying to persuade to curtail his personal attacks and insults since he launched his first campaign in 2015.

Yet for the first time, Trump is facing certain constraints. He is under indictment. The judge will have plenty to say about how the trial plays out.

But when Trump spoke in prime time to an enthusiastic crowd at Mar-a-Lago, it seemed that toning it down was not in his DNA.

He called Bragg a “radical left” prosecutor, adding: “The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts” of grand jury material, and should resign.

TONGUE-TIED TRUMP RIVALS CAN’T TRASH THEIR INDICTED TORMENTOR

He called Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith a “bomb thrower who is harassing hundreds of my people day after day over the boxes hoax.” That refers to the probe of Trump mishandling classified documents, in which Smith is reported to be pursuing possible obstruction of justice charges.

He called Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor looking into vote-tampering, “a local racist Democrat district attorney” who is doing everything in her power “to indict me.”

And then he went after Judge Merchan himself: “I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris.” 

So much for restraint.

Former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the South Carolina State House in Columbia, South Carolina, US, on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023. (Sam Wolfe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump has drawn particular flak for going after the judge’s daughter, a young professional who actually worked for a liberal consulting firm supporting Harris, especially after Donald Trump Jr. posted a picture of her.

This is how the former president campaigns. He’s convinced that is how he won the White House the first time around, by punching and counterpunching.

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The defendant blames Merchan for the imprisonment of his friend Allen Weisselberg, overlooking the fact that the former Trump Organization CFO chose to plead guilty.

There is a pattern here. In 2016, Trump attacked Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was hearing a fraud lawsuit involving Trump University, by saying his Mexican background presented an “inherent conflict of interest” based on the candidate’s plan to build a border wall. He also called Curiel, who was born in Indiana, a “hater.” 

During the Mar-a-Lago speech, which MSNBC refused to carry on the grounds that Trump was lying, he didn’t repeat some previously scathing language–such as calling Bragg a “degenerate psychopath.” But he came out swinging.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago estate Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in Palm Beach, Fla., after being arraigned earlier in the day in New York City.  (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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In a Truth Social post Wednesday, Trump said: “REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES. THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TOTALLY WEAPONIZED LAW ENFORCEMENT IN OUR COUNTRY.”

Defund the police? For my adult lifetime, the Republicans ran as the party of law and order and called the Democrats soft on crime. Now that seems flipped on its head. Trump and many Republicans are constantly on the attack against federal law enforcement, while the Democrats argue no one is above the law.

The Bragg indictment is a flimsy document that has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. Of course Trump is entitled to attack the case and the man who brought it, but as both candidate and criminal defendant, he may learn that his life has changed.

Trump, who was only briefly glimpsed going in and out of the Lower Manhattan courthouse, pleaded not guilty. 

The only new twist was a reference to payoffs to a second woman – undoubtedly Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, who was paid $150,000 to keep quiet about her alleged 10-month affair with Trump in 2006, with help from the National Enquirer, as in the case of Stormy Daniels. McDougal told Anderson Cooper that Trump offered her money, which she declined, said they had real feelings for each other, and that the Enquirer didn’t provide her with the promised opportunities.  

But the heart of the case is what has been widely reported: Trump accused of falsifying business records, related to his reimbursement of former fixer Michael Cohen, who passed the $130,000 to Daniels, the porn star. Such charges are misdemeanors, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg bumped them up to felonies by tying them to a federal election law violation at the end of the 2016 campaign and also saying Cohen’s reimbursement was doubled so that he could declare the income to the IRS and not be shortchanged. The Trump team says the transactions were unrelated to the campaign and that he was trying to protect his family from embarrassment.

TRUMP FACES STAGGERING MAXIMUM SENTENCE IF CONVICTED ON 34 FELONY COUNTS

Those on the right are going to seize on the lack of new accusations as evidence that Bragg, an elected Democrat, has brought a politically motivated prosecution. Those on the left will emphasize the gravity, not to mention the sordid nature, of the felony charges, and keep repeating the number 34, though that’s simply the number of invoices allegedly falsified.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in at the Waco Regional Airport in March 2023. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Prosecutors recounted one unconfirmed if salacious incident: that National Enquirer’s parent company paid $30,000 to a doorman who said he knew that Trump had a child out of wedlock. That was later determined to be untrue.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told reporters there were no surprises in the indictment and that “he’s frustrated, he’s upset.”

TONGUE-TIED TRUMP RIVALS CAN’T TRASH THEIR INDICTED TORMENTOR

Bragg told reporters that Trump’s “intent” was “to conceal another crime…to hide damaging information from the voting public.” Asked why he brought the charges now, Bragg said he filed the case “when it was ready.”

Trump, at Mar-a-Lago last night, said “this fake case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 elections.” He said “radical left” prosecutor Bragg campaigned on getting him “at any cost” and that the D.A. was the “criminal” for illegal leaking and should resign. He also slammed Judge Juan Marchan as a “Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife.”

Trump recycled many of his greatest hits, invoking Hunter Biden’s laptop, “which exposes the Biden family as criminals,” he said without evidence. The former president also attempted to discredit the other pending investigations, calling special counsel Jack Smith a “radical left lunatic” and “bomb thrower,” and Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis “a local racist D.A.” He took no questions.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (L) leaves his office in New York on March 30, 2023. – Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg became the first prosecutor in US history to charge a former or sitting president when he filed his indictment against Donald Trump. The 49-year-old Democrat is no stranger to landmark moments: he is the first Black Manhattan DA, winning election to the post in November 2021.  ((Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images))

The indictment charges that Trump “orchestrated a scheme” with others “to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects.”

The 58-minute arraignment – a remarkable development given that a former president is the defendant – reflected the unique nature of the case.

Prosecutors asked for a protective order so that Trump can’t make public material turned over in discovery. There was a discussion of Trump’s heated rhetoric on Truth Social, including highly personal attacks on Bragg and Judge Marchan. But the judge did not issue a gag order.
 

Former US President Donald Trump speaks at the East Palestine Fire Department in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 22, 2023 (REBECCA DROKE/AFP via Getty Images)

The next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 4, which means the trial itself could get under way just as Republicans are starting to vote in the primaries and caucuses.

We caught just brief glimpses of Trump as he walked in and out of the courthouse, in part because his entrance was obscured by the semi-permanent New York scaffolding. One of the still photographers briefly allowed in before the arraignment captured an image of the former president, flanked by his lawyers, in which he looked grim and concerned.

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Trump wasn’t the only one surrendering. The three cable news networks essentially surrendered their airwaves to the Trump Spectacle. Of course, the arraignment is a story of huge national importance, but the minute-by-minute roundup–with the coverage of Trump’s black-car motorcade to the courthouse conjuring memories of O.J.’s white Bronco–was absurdly excessive.

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And there was one overriding reason: ratings. MSNBC and CNN especially have missed the Trump show and its Nielsen numbers, so no one wanted to come off the story and the live pictures for fear of people clicking off.