| The study of Critical Discourse Analysis offers a wide range of data source to study. Interestingly, so far only written sources have been studied. For this reason, this study attempts to use videos as its object of analysis, a YouTube talk show, The David Pakman Show. The first aim of this study is to explain the construction of President Donald Trump in the talk show. The second purpose is to find out how the multimodal elements support the construction of Donald Trump in this talk show. The two aims of the study are related to the novelty of this study. The data source is 16 episodes which cover President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic in the USA between March and April 2020. The onemonth period is selected as it is between two of the first pivotal points of the pandemic. They are 11 March 2020, when the WHO declared the coronavirus disease as a pandemic, and 4 April 2020, when they announced that there have been over 1 million COVID-19 infections worldwide. Pakman’s utterances and the multimodal aspects of the talk show which reflect representation of Donald Trump are examined using van Dijk’s microlevel analysis framework, which includes three structures of a text: the macrostructure, superstructure, and microstructure. The macrostructure analysis examines utterances and assemble macropropositions which ultimately produce one global topic of each episode. The process of evaluating the utterances and obtaining macropropositions is recursive until the global theme of an episode is obtained. This is done by applying van Dijk’s macrorules. The global themes reflect Trump’s characteristics which are used to construct the negative representation of Trump. Departing from the global topics obtained in the macrostructure analysis, the superstructure analysis determines the stages in relation to the episodes’ global themes. In doing so, each section of the talk is examined in order that the stage to which it belongs can be identified. This leads to the discovery of the three new stages and the realization that the talk show is not a traditional exposition. The new stages are intro, inset, and coda. The microstructure analysis exposes Trump’s characteristics by means of van Dijk’s 42 discursive device strategies. The findings include three new structural categories in the microstructure analysis: direct clip, direct quote, and still. This is due to the analysis subject being a talk show instead of written discourse. Another finding is Donald Trump’s characteristics which are used to construct his negative representation. In the end, after the construction of Trump is completed, Pakman’s intention to deliver his talk is revealed. It is to prevent Trump from becoming president again |