The Trump campaign will now be bypassing the media and delivering live streams of President Trump’s rallies “directly” online.
The president delivered a speech more than an hour long in Moon Township, Pa., in the evening Saturday, where he gave a last-minute push for GOP congressional candidate Rick Saccone, who is running in the special election for the 18th Congressional District.
In an announcement, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. said it ran a beta live stream of the event, available on social media as well as the websites of the campaign and the Republican National Committee.
“This evening Americans were able to experience a Trump rally without the filter of the mainstream media thanks to our MAGA Direct beta live stream we delivered to our social media channels and websites for the first time,” said Brad Parscale, campaign manager for Trump’s 2020 campaign.
“As we engage in the 2018 mid-terms and plan in advance for the 2020 presidential campaign, we will continue to model ourselves after President Trump and explore new ways to leverage social and digital media. Through our live streaming of campaign events, we can connect more directly with Americans who serve as our inspiration to continue to Make America Great Again,” he added.
Parscale, who worked as a digital aide to Trump’s 2016 campaign, was picked last month to lead his re-election bid. In a statement, the campaign said it would beging to focus on “building its infrastructure for the 2020 race.”
The new live stream operation will include “newer IP technology and multiple camera angles that enable viewers to experience Trump rallies and other events more directly,” the statement Saturday said.
Trump has long reviled the media’s coverage of his rallies, accusing “fake news” networks of not showing crowd sizes. The campaign’s effort will attempt to offer a solution to this gripe.
“This will include crowd shots that the mainstream media have intentionally neglected to show at Trump rallies since they became an important function of the Make America Great Again movement in 2015,” the statement said.
So far the social media blitz scored the campaign more than 800,000 views on Facebook as of press time, boosted by a tweet from Trump’s official Twitter account.
