In the speech, Trump declassified intelligence that he said showed Chinese interference in U.S. elections, reviving his long-running attacks on election security despite a U.S. intelligence assessment that found no evidence Beijing altered the 2020 vote, which he lost.
Before the speech, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a press briefing it was "very possible” that Trump would also mention the situation with Iran and the economy at the top of the speech, and could possibly address a range of topics.
She said that is “all the more reason” for the networks to carry the speech live, and for Americans to tune in.
Trump briefly mentioned the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which he said the U.S. is winning, and said the U.S. economy was in its best shape ever but focused on his election-security allegations.
Pressure on networks
Trump has spent years sowing doubts about electoral outcomes, falsely claiming his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged. He has also claimed without evidence that mail-in voting is rife with fraud, voting machines are vulnerable to manipulation and non-citizen voting is widespread.
Some Democrats, including U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, have urged networks not to air the speech, arguing Trump is likely to repeat debunked claims.
CBS preempted its regular programming to air the president's speech, but before the broadcast, anchor Tony Dokoupil offered an advance rebuttal of what was to be expected. “Honestly, much of what the president has said on this topic is false,” he said, before adding the reason the network was covering the speech live was because "it will be news, and it is our job to cover the news.”
The network broke off after about 15 minutes to debunk Trump's claims of election fraud.
Fox News carried Trump's speech live with some local Fox broadcast affiliates picking up the cable network's programming, including in New York City.
At CBS, the takeover of Paramount PSKY.O by David Ellison, whose billionaire father Larry Ellison is a Trump ally, has roiled the newsroom and prompted the departure of senior staff from the news magazine "60 Minutes". Some employees have alleged political interference in editorial decisions, which the network has denied.
Ellison is now awaiting FCC approval for Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which could give him control of CNN, a network Trump has long criticized for what he says is unfair coverage. The U.S. Justice Department's Antitrust Division approved the deal last month.
The speech comes at a sensitive moment for U.S. media.
Walt Disney-owned ABC DIS.N is facing two pending inquiries from the Federal Communications Commission, including one examining whether its daytime talk show "The View" violated equal-time rules by interviewing a Democratic Senate candidate in Texas.
The FCC could move as early as next month to begin the process of withdrawing the licenses for Disney's eight company-owned ABC stations.
Trump has repeatedly attacked NBC and its parent company, Comcast CMCSA.O, which he has dubbed "Concast." Last month he stormed out of an interview with NBC political reporter Kristen Welker after calling the network "a one-sided crooked network."
Comcast last month announced plans to split into two publicly traded companies through a spinoff of NBCUniversal and Sky. Analysts have said the move could make NBCUniversal an attractive takeover target.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr is also investigating Comcast and its NBC unit over its diversity practices, which Carr said were the basis for the decision to speed up the reviews of Disney's ABC stations.
The conservative-leaning cable news network Fox News, controlled by the family of Rupert Murdoch, generally carries all of Trump's speeches but may also be wary of this one.
In 2023, the network had to pay out $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit over its airing of false claims about the 2020 election.
On Wednesday, Carr said in an interview with NewsNation that he thought the broadcast networks should air Trump's remarks.
"This is something that the American people have every right to be able to get over the airwaves," Carr said.
Carr did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
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