By JACQUES STEINBERG
In a showdown that featured inside-the-Beltway lobbying and bare-knuckle boardroom negotiating, Donald J. Trump and President Bush effectively squared off yesterday in pursuit of the same parcel of real estate -- a piece of the NBC-TV prime-time lineup. And it was the president who blinked first.
But in the end, the president's aides appeared to be every bit as canny as those representing Mr. Trump. The decision by the White House to move up the starting time of its news conference by a half-hour -- a move that NBC sought, at least in part to protect the starting time of Mr. Trump's "Apprentice" show -- set off a chain of events that wound up garnering the president live coverage on all four major broadcast networks.
The decision, announced in the evening, had the effect of putting sufficient pressure on CBS-TV and Fox Broadcasting, to prompt them to announce that they, too, would carry the news conference live on their main networks, reversing decisions that they had announced publicly earlier in the day.