Viewers may have to do a little hunting or channel-surfing if they want to watch tonight’s controversial address to the nation from President Donald Trump.
ABC and NBC will opt to stream Trump’s speech at 9 pm EST on their streaming platforms, rather than carry it live on their networks. ABC says that it will broadcast a special report when the speech concludes.
“ABC News will run President Trump’s speech on ABC News Live and ABC News Radio with comprehensive, anchored coverage,” an ABC News spokesperson says. “We will also cover the speech in our regular network newscasts and, as always, our Special Report team is fully prepared to break into network programming to deliver live updates and reporting should significant developments occur.”
Spokespeople for CBS News and Fox News had not responded to a request for comment, as of this writing.
CNN won’t be carrying the speech live but the cable network is planning coverage around it.
“CNN will cover the President’s speech as a news event, and monitor it for news developments, providing analysis and commentary from CNN experts who cover elections, intelligence and the FBI,” a CNN rep said, adding that a live feed of the speech will be on its website.
The decision not to carry the speech live is not actually unusual: Networks usually weight the subject matter and context, and all have in the past declined to run speeches from Presidents Biden, Obama and Bush, among others.
In this case, the subject of the President’s speech is not entirely clear, though he has suggested it will be about “election integrity,” suggesting it could be about once again sowing doubt about 2020 election, which he lost, or perhaps the upcoming midterm elections. Earlier this week there were rumblings that he would declare that Georgia’s Democratic Senators were not legitimately elected.
When President Trump addressed the nation about the Iran war earlier this year, the networks carried it live.
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