Trump Brings Red Meat And Wine To Primary-Night Airwaves

The steaks in a presidential election have never been higher.

After his victories in the Michigan and Mississippi Republican primaries Tuesday night, Donald Trump held a news conference at his golf resort in Jupiter, Florida, in which he briefly turned cable news networks into his own personal warehouse club. With the usual row of U.S. flags was a display table of products: America's brand alongside Trump's, not necessarily in that order. There was Trump Water, wines from Trump Winery and, above all, a bloody heap of steaks.

It was the most brazen display of meat in an American presidential campaign since last Thursday's Republican debate.

On a literal level, Trump's prime-time infomercial was a rebuttal to, and a taunt at, Mitt Romney, who, in a broadside last Thursday, had painted him as a business failure. After some opening remarks about the day's vote and his immigration proposals, Trump turned to Job 1: defending his brand.

"I built a great, great company," Trump said. "You have the water. You have the steaks." He added, "You have the wines and all of that."

There was something atavistic about the exhibition. Trump was a chieftain demonstrating his potency with a flourish of baksheesh. (He offered reporters there a free bottle of wine.) He was a Bronze Age ruler displaying trophies to his challengers. Look on my works, ye Mitt, and despair!

Were the "Trump Steaks" the same product Trump once sold through the Sharper Image catalog? Was the magazine he brandished the same one Romney cited as a failure? Apparently not, but then again this contest, if not Trump's entire career, has been about appearance versus reality, or the ability of appearances to create their own reality.

Branding, Trump's specialty, is the capitalist version of transubstantiation. The businessman-celebrity bestows his blessing on a humble slab of meat and lo, it becomes a Trump Steak. The word made flesh, water and wine - from a candidate who once referred to the New Testament book as "Two Corinthians." It was like the wedding at Cana meets the miracle of loaves and fishes, had they been catered by Ruth's Chris.

The event also proved, again, Trump's ability to lease news network airtime rent-free. The cable news networks stuck with his remarks even as returns came in from a nail-biter of a Democratic primary in Michigan and that party's front-runner, Hillary Clinton, gave her own speech.

Given that Clinton was on her way to a surprise loss in Michigan to Bernie Sanders, Trump may have run welcome interference for her.

Nor was Trump the only candidate Tuesday engaging in visual branding. Sanders gave brief remarks in front of what looked like someone's wooden backyard deck, a few campaign placards tacked up behind him - the image contrasting his campaign against Clinton's more traditional political theater, his populist roughage against Trump's Vegas rib-eye buffet.

In part, Trump's extended airtime once again owes to his decision to hold news conferences on election nights, rather than making a standard speech. By taking questions after his remarks, he guarantees the cameras stay on him longer.

But there's also the now-familiar rubbernecking effect, the sense that - even as he rambles on about his poll numbers and his golf courses and his theory of never settling lawsuits - he might just say something wild. That, again, is where the steaks come in. Trump has a knack for creating just enough bizarre spectacle that newsroom producers feel it would be televisual malpractice to cut away.

And in the meantime, there was the image of him, surrounded by the products that sent the gut message he wanted to convey: success, luxury, abundance. Attack the authenticity of Donald Trump's steaks all you want, with as many facts as you like. He will still be there, selling the sizzle.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)