Trump's primetime speech will not air on ABC, CBS or NBC

[0:00] With President Trump set to address the nation tonight, both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol [0:05] Hill are sharing their thoughts on potential topics for this evening. It's highly suspected [0:11] that the president's speech could revisit long-debunked conspiracy theories about his [0:15] 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. This all comes as Trump escalates his desire for Republicans to [0:21] pass stricter federal voting rules ahead of November's midterm elections. Here's some [0:27] remarks from a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill and beyond earlier today. [0:35] I've been warning for months that this president wants to interfere in this year's elections. [0:42] I know there's a number of his advisors who want him to once again talk aloud because they're afraid [0:48] of what he might say. It'll probably be not based in fact at all. And my strong encouragement, [0:56] I don't care whether you're a Democrat, Republican, Independent, is to take the president's words [1:01] tonight with a grain of salt, recognizing that he may be pulling non-facts or making [1:08] presumptions about what happened in 2020 and what's happened going forward that are not fact-based. [1:15] Well, listen, I look forward to hearing from the president as always. And if he calls for election [1:19] integrity, I bet. I mean, who knows? But I bet he just might call on the Senate to pass voter ID. [1:24] And I'm all for that. I mean, we have that in Missouri. It's overwhelmingly popular. We voted [1:29] on it, the voters ourselves, and a statewide referendum. And I've always said, I wish that [1:33] we would make Missouri's law as national. So I'm all for that. If he talks about that tonight, [1:37] that'd be great. I hope we will urge folks to support voter ID. And I think you'll find that [1:42] huge majorities of the American people support that. So I don't know why we're still talking about [1:46] the 2020 election on either side of the aisle. We've got important work to do. And I think the [1:53] most important is coming up here in the midterms. In the meantime, to continue to do the people's [1:59] work. And when we're talking about what happened six years ago, I don't think we're doing them any [2:04] favors. Senator Cornyn, Senator Hawley, and Senator Warner earlier today. Let's take a live look at [2:13] the White House. As I said, this will not be a speech from the Oval Office. The president will [2:19] not be at the resolute desk. As far as we understand, he'll be giving these remarks from [2:24] the East Room. And some networks like ABC and NBC will not be airing the remarks live on terrestrial [2:30] television. Caroline Levitt today encouraged networks to carry it live. She started today's [2:35] press briefing by saying, quote, President Trump will deliver a major address to the nation on [2:41] protecting the integrity of our elections. And we encourage every American to tune in. [2:47] We are just over an hour away from the speech itself. Let's bring in Joe Flint. He is a media [2:52] and entertainment reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in Los Angeles. Thanks for coming on. [2:58] Thanks for having me. Of course. Does the media have an obligation to carry a presidential address live? [3:04] Well, typically the media or specifically the linear broadcast networks, you mentioned NBC and ABC [3:13] and CBS and Fox and they use broadcast spectrum. So typically they do carry these addresses, but [3:20] they do have, they have in the past turned down presidents who requested for airtime. If there was a [3:27] determination that the remarks were more of a political nature versus of a national news, global [3:36] crisis nature. So in this case, NBC and CBS, sorry, NBC and ABC have said they'll be monitoring the [3:45] remarks. They'll cover it in their newscasts, but they're not going to carry it live. We're waiting [3:49] to hear what CBS is going to do, which way they're leaning. Not unprecedented though, rare, but not [3:55] unprecedented. Yeah, I was reading, we remember in 2022, it was September of 2022, President Joe Biden [4:02] gave a primetime address. He largely spoke out against the MAGA movement there. Networks at that [4:09] time decided that the speech was too partisan and that it was too close to the midterm elections. [4:15] So this isn't the only time in recent memory where networks have had to make a decision like this. [4:21] What are we hearing from the major networks? Because I said terrestrial television at the top, [4:26] but it seems like this will be a streaming affair for many networks. Yes. NBC, CBS, ABC, they'll all be [4:34] carrying the speech live on their respective streaming digital news platforms, as will CNN. [4:41] CNN is also not planning to carry the speech live, but they'll be covering it as a news event and it [4:46] will be on their streaming platform as well. So there won't be a shortage of places for viewers to find [4:56] the remarks, especially this day and age. So many people are consuming content online and through [5:03] other platforms that I don't think, I'd be hard pressed to think there'll be people actually [5:09] challenged to not be able to find the remarks somewhere in their viewing home. [5:14] So then why is this a conversation? Is it just simply because of the tradition of a presidential [5:19] primetime address being on terrestrial TV? I think it's a combination of the tradition. [5:25] And also, let's be honest, the relationship between this administration and a lot of the media [5:30] is often tense. So when the networks decide not to carry a speech from this president, [5:41] I notice when I look online, everyone seems to develop a short-term memory loss, forgetting that [5:46] this is not unique to this president. You mentioned the Biden remarks in 2022. [5:51] But everyone begins to see that decision through a political lens. And I think that would be the [5:59] case no matter what, but certainly everything gets, the volume gets tuned up a lot more when it is a [6:05] confrontation between the current administration and the networks of which he is tangled with so many [6:10] times. Appreciate the context, Joe. Take care. Thank you.