Donald Trump’s Facebook TV show broke down on Tuesday night.
Instead of broadcasting pro-Trump propaganda from the campaign’s designated Facebook page, Trump’s nightly program instead went to black, then showed a setting configuration error. Prior to the program going down, it was in the middle of broadcasting commentary from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn, a lawyer who serves as a senior adviser to the Trump campaign.
Time magazine reporter Zeke Miller tweeted about the blackout while it happened. As soon as it came back online, he noted that an offscreen voice blamed the error on a Facebook conspiracy.
Trump FB Live is now down with black “setting configuration” error
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 25, 2016
Offscreen voice as Trump TV comes back online after error re commenters "They’re blaming Facebook, saying it’s a conspiracy"
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 25, 2016
As The New York Times later revealed, director Avi Berkowitz, a Trump attack dog, is a Harvard Law School graduate without any broadcasting background. Even the look of the show is primitive.
“The set consisted of two wooden tables pressed together, facing a single camcorder on a tripod,” the Times wrote.
During the first broadcast of “Trump Tower Live” on Monday, the 38-minute episode opened with Epshteyn, Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer, and Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway sitting awkwardly in front of the camera waiting for the stream to start (Conway could be seen on her phone).
Subsequent episodes are scheduled to air every night until Election Day.
Trump himself is continuing to deny any interest in creating his own media empire.
“I have no interest in Trump TV,” Trump said during an interview broadcast on Cincinnati radio station WLW on Tuesday.
“I hear it all over the place. I have a tremendous fan base, we have a tremendous base. We have the most incredible people, but I just don’t have any interest in that.”
Multiple reports indicated that Trump and his surrogates have been in talks about launching a Trump network. The most prominent rumor circulated last week when reports came out that Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, had met with Aryeh Bourkoff, the CEO of an investment fund known as LionTree.
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