NBC does its part to save us from Trump

This morning NBC announced its new fall line-up, which includes The Celebrity Apprentice. The show’s host, Donald Trump, announced he’s not running for president during NBC’s “upfronts,” the announcement of the new season.

Trump said the decision wasn’t easily made, “especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country.” However, Trump never seemed serious. In earlier statements, he made his priorities clear when he said he would make no announcement before the end of the Celebrity Apprentice season because of his contract with NBC.

Since the White House Correspondents Dinner where President Barack Obama and Seth Meyers made Trump the butt of many of the evening’s jokes, Trump has lost 10 points in most polls. Ratings on his show plummeted. Before Trump’s announcement, NBC said (threatened?) that his show could continue with a different host.

Fox News commentator and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also announced over the weekend that he isn’t running. Huckabee had topped many Republican popularity polls. He has said recently that with kids in college, running for the presidency would be financially challenging now. He’s also building a $2 million house in Florida.

Had Trump and Huckabee entered the race, NBC and Fox would have had to give every other candidate equal time. That rule is one of the few pieces left of the Fairness Doctrine that used to require all stations to air opposing views on issues and give equal time to the two parties.

Both Trump and Huckabee have made statements opposing LGBT equality.

Last week, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich became only the second person to formally enter the Republican presidential primary — after openly gay candidate Fred Karger. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, announced he’s planning another run. Gingrich’s biggest negative to “family values” voters is this divorcing his first wife while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. His divorce from his second wife didn’t go so well, either. That happened during his affair with a staff worker at about the same time he was criticizing Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair.

On the other hand, Gingrich’s sister, Candace, is a lesbian who works with the Human Rights Campaign as associate director, youth and campus outreach
program. That’s a positive, right?

Gingrich gave up his Fox News job to run for the presidency.