Earlier this year, Fox News announced it was shuffling its weekend lineup to add My View with Lara Trump to its Saturday evening offerings.
The move was met with some pushback in media circles, as a cable channel was getting directly into bed with a member of the Trump family.
On ethics alone, is that wrong? Sure? But Fox News isn’t an unbiased news source. It makes no bones about what it is. It has firm affixed itself to the Team Trump bandwagon. And that isn’t a criticism, it’s a statement of fact. As much as Fox News is Trump’s “home team,” MSNBC is the anti-Trump team. The only thing in the middle of the road is dead animals. In a cable news world, reporting the facts and letting viewers decide is a losing strategy. Just ask CNN.
Before joining Fox News as a host, she had media experience. After working as a producer at Inside Edition, she also hosted a podcast for Salem Podcast Network in addition to serving as a contributor at Fox News and making rather frequent appearances on Newsmax — where she used a studio background that prominently feature a misspelled URL, which also pointed nowhere if you typed it correctly.
After the inauguration of her father-in-law in January, Trump was announced as host of My View on Fox News, with the debut scheduled for Saturday, February 5th. The initial show was a rousing success, garnering more than 2.5 million viewers, marking the most-watched Saturday at 9 PM ET since Donald Trump was shot last July.
As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t necessarily like to judge a show in its early iterations. I think it’s fair to let a show gather its footing before rushing to a determination on whether it’s great or not. Is just under two months enough time for Lara Trump to find her voice and hammer out what her shoe really looks like? No, likely not. But, I’m going to use her program from this past weekend to see what stands out, both good and bad.
To begin the show, she led off by discussing the case brought to the Supreme Court by a group of Maryland parents disagreeing with the curriculum of public schools and not being able to opt their children out of lessons they dislike, disagree with, or go against their religious beliefs.
Generally, I think weekend shows — especially in primetime — should be more of a “week in review” style, focusing on the top stories of the week. In essence, hosts like Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity have five bites at the apple to talk about whatever they’d like. Lara Trump has one. So to lead her show off with a story that hasn’t dominated the headlines certainly feels like an interesting decision.
She then tied it into the legal case between Harvard and President Trump, with the Ivy League school suing the administration over its freeze on funding. That’s undeniably a bigger story.
The chyron on the screen read “Restoring The Soul of American Education.” Which, to me, doesn’t feel like a big enough story to lead your one-hour weekend primetime show with. But that’s my opinion.
Trump’s monologue presentation wasn’t especially polished. The cadence in which she spoke didn’t allow her thoughts to cut through by using her voice inflection. While she made salient, thought-provoking points, they were difficult to parse out. In college, I had a professor who would always say ,”You have to learn…to master the art…of the dramatic…pause.” Lara Trump has not learned to master the art of the dramatic pause. And I think that hurt her opening monologue. It did get better as the monologue went on, however.
The other thing I wanted to check in on was the interview skills exhibited on My View with Lara Trump. It’s hard to be a good interviewer, especially when you’re an inexperienced interviewer. But on her program Saturday evening, Trump sat down with Charlie Kirk at Texas A&M as he hosted another college campus tour visit to speak with students who opposed him.
It felt like she was much more comfortable in that setting than in the studio delivering her monologue. Despite not nailing a flawless interview (there’s always something you can do better, which I discuss in my series: The Interview, shameless plug), she asked great questions of Kirk.
And I especially thought it showed a good understanding of her audience. Let’s face: the Fox News audience is old. And not just old. It’s old. While Charlie Kirk might be a familiar face to the Fox News audience, the likelihood that they are familiar with his college campus content — especially when much of it lives on platforms like YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok — isn’t likely. So for her to take the time ask Kirk questions to illuminate why he’s on a college campus and what’s about to transpire shows a fundamental understanding of her audience.
The other thing that stood out in the conversation between her and Kirk was just how poorly edited the discussion was. That isn’t something that Lara Trump can control, obviously. But there are some really rough cuts throughout the conversation. The discussion isn’t allowed to breathe, because as soon as Trump ends her question, Kirk is speaking about his answer immediately. I’m not exaggerating. Immediately. And as soon as he’s done answer, she’s immediately asking another question. I understand there are time constraints, but jump cuts, cut-off answers, and an absence of humanity — if that’s the right word to use — is prevalent in the interview.
After the seven-minute sit-down, the conversation awkwardly moved outdoors before Kirk began his event with the Turning Point USA group he founded. The walk-and-talk didn’t especially add anything or advance the story. Nothing was accomplished in that portion of the interview, truth be told.
Overall, I just didn’t think there was much that was overtly remarkable about the show. But it doesn’t have to be remarkable. Lara Trump is everything a Fox News viewer could want. She’s undeniably pretty, she’s got the most important last name in all of American politics, and she’s saying the things those viewers want — and most importantly, expect — to hear.
Ultimately, the content doesn’t need to be great. It doesn’t have to stand out, it doesn’t have to be a shining star, or serve as a groundbreaking endeavor. It has to simply exist and it will be widely watched and — most importantly — profitable for the network. Becasue, that’s what Fox News’ mission is at the end of the day. Get a boatload of viewers and leverage that audience with cable television providers and advertisers. Again, not a knock. That’s the name of the game. They’re just doing it better than everyone else in the industry.
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and get the latest information delivered straight to your inbox.
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
