Three Months In, Corporate Media Has Learned Nothing About Dealing With Trump

Ninety-two percent of the three most popular news networks’ coverage of President Donald Trump in 2025 has been negative, a Media Research Center (MRC) analysis released Monday found.

The study, which evaluated 899 news stories from the three most widely watched news networks (CBS, NBC and ABC), did not evaluate openly partisan sources. It exclusively measured evaluative statements about Trump from reporters, anchors and non-partisan sources, including experts or voters.

The 92-percent figure is up from 2017, when Trump coverage skewed 89 percent negative for the first 100 days of his first term, a study the MRC conducted with identical methodology found.

“The comedy of this entire scenario … is they’re so frustrated that their bias doesn’t work,” Tim Graham, MRC’s director of media analysis, told the Daily Caller

“How do we cover Trump? It seems like the more we try to get him assassinated, he just gets stronger,” Graham said, imitating a leftwing news personality.

He argued the numbers showed that the negative coverage was not effective at tarnishing Trump in the eyes of the voter.

“They were just so mystified that they tried to put him in jail so aggressively, and there’s no question that backfired.”

The negative coverage did not align with voters’ feelings, Graham said.

“They want to sell this idea that he’s out of control with mass deportations. They tried to make mass deportations wildly unpopular. They’re failing at that,” he told the Caller.

Ninety-seven percent of Americans want the government to deport illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes, a Pew Research Center poll from March found.

Half of all Americans want some illegal immigrants deported while a third want all illegal immigrants deported, the poll also found.

The big three network’s coverage of Trump immigration policies were 93 percent negative, the analysis found.

The 233 minutes they spent covering Trump’s immigration policies were over double the 115 minutes of coverage they gave to President Joe Biden’s immigration policies in his first few months. That coverage was 83 percent negative.

The networks covered Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran migrant the Trump administration deported in March, for 143 minutes, Graham told the Caller. (RELATED: Abrego Garcia Pulled Over In Vehicle Owned By Convicted Human Smuggler)

They spent three and a half minutes telling viewers how much Trump has reduced border crossings compared to Biden, the study found.

🚨 BREAKING: Monthly average border encounters are way down under the Trump administration and the anti-American media are not talking about it pic.twitter.com/DH9BAw7Fc6

— Media Research Center (@theMRC) March 31, 2025

“They presented Biden’s mass importation as not a crisis. They helped [Biden Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayokras and Biden and Harris say there’s no border crisis. They just repeated it.”

Evening news broadcasts from the big three networks gave Biden 59 percent positive coverage, a similar MRC study found.

“They’re saying you’re not allowing us our independence. And I’m like, you weren’t independent when you were kissing Biden’s ass,” Graham said.

“Scott Pelley interviewed Joe Biden and it was like, ‘Explain to me your position on Israel’ and he just let him go. There was no … he wasn’t getting any pushback,” Graham said.

Scott Pelley’s latest softball interview with Biden on ’60 Minutes’ ends by underlining Biden’s apparent love of Israel, and how he wants to run again to make everything better. Tick tick tick. More ‘Syrupy Minutes’ on CBS. pic.twitter.com/mK3VIoNdYi

— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) October 16, 2023

Like Trump, some in his cabinet received a similar treatment.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. received 89 percent negative coverage, with 56 negative comments against seven positive ones.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was hit hardest of all, percentage wise, with 40 comments about him, all negative.