Networks Comply With Trump Video Ban By Airing Impersonators Instead
Executives say the arrangement satisfies both the blackout and their obligation to cover the presidency, just not the president.
Following the joint decision to suspend video coverage of Donald Trump, network executives announced a workaround they described as fully compliant with both their own boycott and their duty to inform the public: a rotating cast of similarly built stand-ins will now deliver the president's remarks on camera, live, while the actual president speaks off-frame.
"We're not showing Trump, we're showing a man who could be Trump, which is legally distinct," said a network spokesperson who declined to specify which network, or whether such a distinction had been reviewed by anyone.
The arrangement will extend through the president's UN General Assembly address, where the impersonator is expected to cover the Middle East and Ukraine while the real president, seated a few feet away and audible but unseen, handles the actual meetings with eleven world leaders.
CNN, MS Now and Politico, still barred from White House grounds and still suing over it, say they were not consulted on the impersonator plan but have reportedly begun casting calls of their own, on the theory that if nobody can film the president, everybody might as well have a version of him.
Asked whether viewers might find it confusing to watch a body double deliver the State of the Union, one executive said the bigger concern was continuity: the lookalikes, unlike the president, are all available for reshoots.