Trump's "town halls" this week were filled with paid attendees and Republican activists
Donald Trump participated in consecutive, pre-taped “town halls” on October 15 and October 16 that further highlight how the traditional concept of a “town hall” has been thoroughly obliterated. That these events have become contrived and choreographed TV productions should come as no surprise to anyone who’s vaguely acquainted with modern US politics and media, but attending several of these things in person, as I have done over the past week, really solidifies the conclusion in excruciating detail.
First, anyone who reads this article and thinks I’m trying to make some scurrilous Trump-specific critique needs to be reminded that I just made almost identical observations after attending a Kamala Harris / Univision “town hall” last week in Las Vegas. That reporting made big waves in alternative/right-wing media. If I had to guess, the following Trump-related observations will generate less attention because they don’t bolster any preferred GOP narrative — but they are nonetheless true.
At yesterday’s Univision-hosted “town hall” with Trump, held in Doral, Florida right adjacent to one of Trump’s golf courses, audience members were assembled by a similar method as the Kamala production. I confirmed with multiple participants that they’d been recruited through a Miami-area casting agency called BH Model Management, which ordinarily recruits “extras” for things like Spanish-language soap operas (“telenovelas”), sitcoms, commercials, and “brand ambassador” deals, as Alexy Mendez, the head of the agency, explained to me.
“I came through an agency, BH Modeling or BH Agency. The best,” one woman told me as she was exiting the Univision studio. “I’m one of the people that they usually call,” she said, having worked as an extra in “telenovelas” for “a long time.” The woman expressed support for Trump and opposition to communism. As I was getting additional information, a security guard approached and said I “can’t be interviewing anybody right now.” When I asked why not, he said “There’s a policy” and did not elaborate.
Before the security guard intervened, I was able to talk to another audience member, José Calderón of Doral, FL, who also said he was recruited through the casting agency. He said that prior to attending, he was “leaning” toward voting for Trump. “Is part of the reason why you wanted to come, because you were supportive of Trump?” I asked him. “Exactly,” he said. “That was one of the reasons. I would say the monetary incentive as well. So, those two things.”
Calderón and the other “seat-filler” recruits were paid $80. Mendez, the head of the casting company, confirmed this to me. Mendez also did stress that he made every effort to ascertain that the would-be attendees were genuine “undecided” voters, and the event did appear to be more ambiguously advertised than the Las Vegas version with Kamala Harris. “I interviewed very well the people I brought to the town hall,” Mendez told me. Multiple participants said they were not exactly sure what it was that they were attending — they thought it might be a debate of some kind featuring both candidates. When they found out that day it was a solo “town hall” featuring Trump, they were surprised and (for the most part, it seemed) pleased.
A separate company, based in New York and Los Angeles, was contracted by Univision to arrange for the people who actually stood up and asked pre-selected questions to both Trump and Kamala, I was told by someone with knowledge. They hailed from around the country, from Arizona to California to Wisconsin, and were flown in by Univision for both events. This was a separate group from the “seat-fillers” assembled by the casting agency, who were Miami-area locals.
I put the same queries to Anna Negron, head of corporate communications for Univision, as I did at the Las Vegas event last week, but she seemed understandably chastened by past experience of having interacted with me, and a separate PR person who appeared to be affiliated with one of Univision’s parent companies interceded to provide me with the requisite non-answers about the nature of the production. Strangely, she would not give her name.
Trump at one point could be seen within eye-line of a text-filled teleprompter, but there is no reason to believe he was using the teleprompter for his own benefit, just like there was no reason to believe Kamala used the teleprompter last week, despite a flurry of viral allegations that instantly circulated on right-wing social media. Again, these stage-productions are already more than contrived enough without having to make stuff up.
Journalists in the Univision-provided viewing area did seem to enjoy themselves more than at the Kamala/Univision production last week, letting loose multiple outbursts of laughter at various Trump wisecracks, such as when he complimented the hair of one questioner. (I laughed as well. Trump is nothing if not a consummate entertainer).
The previous day I attended another Trump “town hall” production, at a barn in Cumming, Georgia, about an hour north of Atlanta. The event, hosted by Harris Faulkner of Fox News, was billed as being composed entirely of women, which is true enough. What might have been also worth disclosing is that the women in question were overwhelmingly strident, partisan Republicans, and were recruited to the event through local Republican women’s groups. Not that this should come as some huge surprise for a Trump Campaign / Fox News collaboration, but if a “town hall” consists of attendees who are basically turning up for a pep rally in support of their favored candidate, the term “town hall” has perhaps become an outdated misnomer.
The women in the venue whooped and hollered for Trump, which the assembled journalists could hear from an adjoining pen into which we had been relegated. “TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP!” the women chanted. One of the attendees I spoke to afterwards was Trisha Hoyes, a local Republican candidate for the Forsyth County, GA school board.
“I’m a strong Republican,” she said. “I’m a big supporter of Trump, and I just wanted to be here to cheer him on.” Asked how she became aware of the event, she told me “some local Republican organizations” received Fox application links for their members.
Another woman, Alisha Houston, told me she found out about the event through a group called Fulton County Republican Women. She was then selected by Fox to ask a question, but not before declaring to Trump that she had just gotten done voting for him that very day — the first day of Early Voting in Georgia.
Strangely, during the event, the question-askers were seemingly advised by Fox not to state their full names. One woman named Rachel introduced herself to Trump, and began to say her surname, but then quickly corrected herself and only gave a first initial. Another woman identified only as “Lisa” turned out to be Lisa Cauley, president of Fulton County Republican Women.
Neither of these Trump events could be reasonably called “town halls” as that term has been traditionally understood. The first was a de facto Trump/GOP campaign rally organized by Fox, and the second was filled with people who’d literally been paid to show up. I’ve attended a lot of actual town halls, and certainly have never been paid for my services. The phoniness of each thus rivals the phoniness of the Kamala stage production that occurred last week. Most annoying to me personally is the pretense of an open forum that these events are advertised as by the media corporations that host them. Three weeks before the election, voters ought to get some modicum of actual scrutiny of both candidates, but apparently that is not a profitable goal in the current media environment. “Independent” media is hardly any better, as Trump goes around bantering with hand-picked comedian and podcaster types who do nothing but kiss his ass, and Kamala does a variant of the same. I’m not one to overly glamorize the role of journalists, but sometimes an actual journalistic approach is needed to properly interrogate candidates seeking the most powerful job on earth — and it’s just not happening anywhere near enough.
I'm a Trump voter but I don't think they should be doing this on either side. It's dishonest...
BOGUS!
Thanks for letting us know that both sides play the same games.
Love the views from inside the media corral. That one lady journalist was staring daggers at you, though. Stay safe!