Faced With Trump’s Attacks, Public Figures Are Clapping Back Less and Less

Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Seth Meyers all get paid lots of money by Comcast to communicate on television. So when the two MSNBC hosts and NBC late night star each recently came under fire from President Donald Trump, it seemed notable that they all responded by saying the same thing about it on their shows.

Nothing.

In the past, public figures regularly clapped back when Trump — first as president, then as a private citizen and candidate — targeted them on his social media accounts, from Jimmy Kimmel reading his tweet live at last year’s Oscars to Sacha Baron-Cohen sarcastically thanking him for helping publicize his “Borat” sequel in 2020, posting, “I’m always looking for people to play racist buffoons, and you’ll need a job after Jan. 20. Let’s talk!”

More recently, though, celebrities have increasingly, with some exceptions, chosen not to engage, either fearing Trump’s vindictiveness — and his ability to act on it now that he’s back in office — or simply seeing little percentage in getting drawn into the sort of dispute that will trigger the ire of the MAGA faithful.

If trading barbs with Trump once served as a form of liberal validation, a branding/marketing exercise or just plain fun in demonstrating the ease of getting under his skin, the prevailing mindset now appears to be that whatever the benefits, it’s seldom worth the headaches and grief.

In the case of the MSNBC and NBC employees cited, that would also include an awareness that Trump has already targeted their parent company and its CEO, Comcast’s Brian Roberts, calling him a “lowlife” in a Truth Social post in which the president ranted about the unfairness of the cable network’s coverage.

As one network source observed on condition of anonymity, Trump’s attacks have a way of echoing through the conservative media ecosystem, then bleeding into the mainstream as they begin to trend. To respond to every one would merely keep ginned-up controversies alive and potentially unleash more invective from bad-faith actors.

Public figures are thus avoiding not just eliciting Trump’s wrath, but the related vitriol from the online armies that rally around him.

“We did a study on polarization, and that’s exactly how it works,” Fred Cook, director of the Center for Public Relations at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, told TheWrap. “One post or tweet gets into the echo chamber, and it just bounces around and builds energy and momentum. The magnification of the message through social media is so powerful today, especially with Trump supporters, and people don’t want to engage in that battle.”

“It depends on the situation, who you are and how much criticism you get,” added Fraser P. Seitel, a communications consultant and the author of the book “The Practice of Public Relations,” noting that as hosts on a progressive network, Maddow and Wallace have “already converted all the people who watch MSNBC.”

Specifically, Trump stated the pair should resign because of comments they made in regard to a young cancer survivor who attended Trump’s recent address to Congress, although their statements were directed at the administration’s policies, not the boy.

The hosts made no reference to the exchange on their shows, and MSNBC declined comment.

From a public relations perspective, Seitel told TheWrap that’s likely the wisest course — that belaboring the issue by responding to Trump would merely create the risk their comments might be further misrepresented or misconstrued.

“Their credibility is not going to be hurt by Trump going after them,” he said. “The point was made, go on.”

In the weeks since, Trump has continued to escalate his complaints about the media, including his speech last week at the Justice Department, where he argued vaguely — as he has in the past — that negative coverage he receives on CNN, MSNBC and from major newspapers should somehow be “illegal” because it qualifies as a contribution, in his eyes, to Democrats.

The perceived strategic wisdom of avoiding skirmishes with Trump does represent a marked departure from those who actively engaged with him during his first term, and in some cases, consciously attempted to bait him into such conflicts.

The political action group The Lincoln Project, for example, directly targeted “an audience of one” by placing ads on local TV stations and Fox News — knowing Trump is a loyal viewer — on cable systems that service the areas where Trump owns properties in West Palm Beach, Florida and Bedminster, New Jersey.

In May 2020, the group reported amassing $1 million in donations after Trump — who had apparently seen an ad criticizing his COVID response — let loose with a barrage of tweets assailing it.

In those years, networks regularly felt compelled to respond to Trump’s broadsides and falsehoods. When Trump leveled a highly personal attack on MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mike Brzezinski in 2017, for example, an MSNBC spokesman issued a statement that read, “It’s a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job.”

Eight years later, part of the PR calculus has to do with what people have to lose, and even late night comics like Kimmel, Meyers and Stephen Colbert have bosses at Disney, Comcast and Paramount to consider.

By contrast, Rosie O’Donnell, who recently revealed she relocated to Ireland following the November election and again found Trump taking shots at her last week, chose to respond, albeit creatively.

Teed up by a conservative reporter during a joint press availability with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, Trump snidely said his counterpart was “better off not knowing” who O’Donnell was. Later, she posted a poem on her Substack account, referencing an “orange human” and “Russian asset – traitor – spy,” while expressing a wish for leaders who would “lead with dignity, with decency, with decorum, with democracy.”

Even that response has made O’Donnell something of an outlier, as fewer celebrities appear inclined to pick such fights.

If the discussion came down to advising a client, given the current media environment Seitel suggested, there’s “no one-size-fits all” approach. At the least, though, becoming a Trump target appears to warrant a considered reaction, not a knee-jerk one.

“Ninety or 95 percent of the time you would tell them to keep their powder dry” and not say anything, USC’s Cook said, adding that it “takes a certain amount of bravery” for a public figure to willingly invite what comes next.

“Right now,” he said, “I think the risk is outweighing the reward.”

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