President Donald Trump announced in a tweet Monday that he intended to deliver a primetime address about the “crisis” at the Southern border on Tuesday night. All of the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox broadcast) announced that they would carry the address, in addition to the cable news networks.
When Trump announced the address, the networks had not yet agreed to carry the conference, due to the high likelihood of falsehoods during the address and the general tendency to not want to give up precious primetime space to something other than their programming. Slowly over the afternoon, television outlets announced one-by-one that they, too, would carry the address with CNN being the first to announce their intention.
CBS reported that the speech should not run longer than eight minutes.
After the President and networks’ announcements, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement where they called for equal time. The broadcast networks have not yet announced whether they will grant the Democrats’ request.
“Now that the television networks have decided to air the president’s address, which if his past statements are any indication will be full of malice and misinformation, Democrats must immediately be given equal airtime,” the Democratic duo said in a joint statement.