Trump’s Son-in-Law Started Preliminary Talks on Post-Election TV Network

Donald Trump’s Bannon-Conway team have been at the helm for about two months now, and from the perspective of a campaign, it isn’t going well.

At the time of the hires, however, I pondered that Trump himself had a different end game in mind.

Trump Media will take this one step further by not actually needing to worry about candidates, campaigns, or governing. Turn the angry emails into “news” reports, podcasts, and YouTube channels, and hesto presto – contributions become subscription charges. Throw in a big name (i.e., Hannity) plus some advertising and the business model practically builds itself.

While this may be excellent for Trump and his minions, it is a disaster for the Republican Party. Most of the anti-Trump Republicans are keeping their heads down, waiting for the inevitable defeat, and hoping Trump goes away. Never mind that the voters for Barry Goldwater (the last Republican to suffer a genuine landslide defeat) would be wooed by Nixon, Reagan, and George Wallace for the next decade, while African-Americans have largely never forgiven the party since. Trump Media will ensure that (1) he will not go away; (2) his voters will remain “informed”, angry, and actively engaged, and (3) his Big-Government-for-White-People message will continue to be heard. That’s a toxic combination for the Republican Party, one I still believe it cannot survive.

I wasn’t alone in the speculation, but speculation is all it was…

…until this morning (Reuters).

Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, informally approached LionTree Advisors Chief Executive Aryeh Bourkoff about setting up a Trump TV network after the presidential election, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing sources.

Kushner contacted Bourkoff, one of the media industry’s top dealmakers, within the last couple of months, the FT reported, citing three people with knowledge of the matter.

DJM note: emphasis added.

In other words, the Trump family has had this in the back of their minds, but did not begin preliminary talks (and, it should be noted, the talks appear to be just preliminary right now), until Bannon and Conway were in place.

Moreover, Conway’s history is in polling, which will be a nice expertise to have for the marketing side of things.

This is why the Trump “campaign” is doubling-down on base motivation. This may also explain the lack of interest in a ground game. Why care about a ground game with the goal is to turn millions of supporters not into voters, but rather into subscribers?

Thus does the Long Con continue.