TJ Walker breaks down Trump's crisis after the Access Hollywood tape and sexual assault allegations, tracking the immediate fallout: Michelle Obama's response, Clinton's polling gains, and Republican defections. Walker weighs Trump's options, from launching a media network to doubling down instead of apologizing.
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November 8, 2016.
October 13, 2016.
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It's only 20 some days before the 2016 election is over. That will be election day, November 8, 2016. Currently, it is a Thursday, October 13, and the Trump campaign is in an absolute meltdown. Now, this is following up on Friday's revelations. Audio and videotapes showing Donald Trump essentially boasting of sexual assault. That was followed up by his appearance on the debate where he categorically denied Anderson Cooper having ever sexually assaulted women. Now, unfortunately for him, numerous women have come forward claiming that he did in fact assault them, grabbed various body parts, thrust his tongue down, all sorts of things that are, frankly, too disgusting for me to even talk about. It is an absolute avalanche. This is the true definition of a crisis, a media crisis, when you're being hit from all sides. Michelle Obama just moments ago finished arousing speech, attacking and vilifying Trump and what he's done to political discourse in the country. And polling data shows that Hillary Clinton's lead has gone from 2, 3, 4% all the way up to double digits in some polls, including Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal poll earlier this week. Many, many Republican office holders who had, in fact, endorsed Trump de. Endorsed him. Un. Endorsed him over the weekend. Now, some of them did come back. This is an extraordinarily difficult time for Republican office holders and candidates because they are being torn. If they dump Trump, they have so many core supporters who are going to be angry at them and vow to defeat them. If they stay with Trump, they risk being tainted with all the negativity associated with Trump. Some of them, frankly, are very worried about how history will judge them, considering that now looks like Trump could do worse than any Republican candidate. Perhaps not as bad as Goldwater in 64, but any sense, then we are now looking at a situation where it appears to be not if Hillary Clinton will be the next president, but by what margin Will she bring in the Senate? Will she possibly bring in the House? That doesn't look that likely. But it's no longer an impossibility. It's no longer a pipe dream. Most estimates, including those at fivethirtyeight. Com, say there's a better than 50% chance the Democrats could control the Senate after all the votes are cast. So, from a crisis communication standpoint, what can someone like Trump do in this situation? People have asked me, what would you do if you were advising Donald Trump? Well, thankfully, I'm not advising Donald Trump. He has just recently finished a speech where he essentially ignored the allegations and just attacked and hit his central themes. What we've seen in the last few days and I think we're going to continue to see is Trump hitting strong, forceful attacks on Hillary that will appeal to his base. There is a segment of our society that believes that Hillary Clinton belongs in prison, that she is a horrible monster of epic proportion, that Barack Obama is a Muslim not born in America. And Donald Trump understands how to connect with those people. He understands how to communicate with those people. The big question right now for Donald Trump, I believe, in terms of crisis communications, is how does he retain his brand to the point where it's worth anything in the future? He's certainly not going to get a network deal at NBC and be making tens of millions of dollars a year for the Apprentice. That's just not going to happen. What is he going to do after this campaign? Certainly the idea of putting his name on big fancy condos and selling condos at a premium seems highly unlikely. For the life of me, I can't imagine any wealthy, highly wealthy individual in New York City or other big time cities like London wanting to face the shame of living in a building with Donald Trump's name on it. Similarly, his hotels are going to lose value. I'm not saying they're going out of business, but the cachet they once have has been tainted by this campaign. So what will he do? Most speculation centers around him creating his own online TV network. I do think there's something to that. Whether he aligns himself with Sean Hannity, Roger Ailes, I don't really know if that's going to happen. But we've seen it with other candidates, especially on the Republican side. Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin, all have set up their own Internet TV channels and for the most part they've gone nowhere. The only person who sort of left the mainstream to go pure Internet and seems to have made it really big is Glenn Beck. Could Donald Trump do the same thing? Sure, it's possible. But if he does that, he has to really keep his base. He has to keep the alternative right, the so called alt right, the Breitbart crowd, happy. The only way he can do that is by doubling down, making stronger attacks, more forceful attacks. Never ever apologizing, never conceding an inch, never admitting he's wrong, and just attacking him, Hillary Clinton and the Democrats more forcefully every day. I'm not saying that's the advice I would give him. I do believe that is the advice he will follow and it is the only thing he can do to keep some form of entrepreneurial viability post election. I'm TJ Walker, what do you think? Post your comments right here. Whether you're watching this on Facebook, YouTube or any other platform.
