To air Trump, or not to air Trump
The White House has formally asked the major US TV networks to air President Trump’s national address tonight.
It’s an unusual ask, made even more fraught by the circumstances — a retributive president planning a speech that may recycle lies about the 2020 election and sow doubts about this year’s midterms.
So will the broadcast networks preempt their regular prime-time programming to show Trump’s speech at 9 p.m. Eastern?
Network executives have been locked in hours-long meetings about this question. As of this morning, none of the broadcasters have answered it publicly. So, everything I’m about to say is subject to change.
But here’s my sense: The speech will be streamed everywhere and covered widely, but may not receive the type of “roadblock” live coverage that a presidential address on war or peace would.
CBS is considering a middle-ground approach, I’m told: Instead of automatically taking the speech live on the broadcast network at 9, CBS may tape-turn some clips and air a Tony Dokoupil special report later in the hour, reporting on what the president announced while fact-checking the claims.
In that scenario, which other broadcasters are also considering, CBS would show the entire speech live on its streaming news channel and on social platforms.
That way, the broadcaster would be acknowledging that the White House claims Trump is making a major address, while still exercising some editorial judgment.
NBC and ABC may adopt a similar approach, though there are also arguments for airing the entire speech live on broadcast, and there are very good arguments for just streaming it.
“It’s not 1974 anymore,” a network source remarked. “There are lots of ways to cover the news.”
Especially if it veers away from news and into election-denying propaganda that actively harms the American people.
We all lived through 2020 and the lies that led to an insurrection. We all know how this can go.
Ben Berwick of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group, told CNN’s Stephen Collinson that there’s “no doubt” Trump is intending to “sow doubt about the 2026 election.”
I could go on, but the bottom line is that, as of 11:40 a.m. ET, none of the networks have officially decided what to do yet. For now, “The Americas” is airing on NBC at 9; “Press Your Luck” is on ABC; and “Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage” is on CBS.
For cable news networks, the decision-making is somewhat less awkward, since they’re on the air talking about Trump at 9 p.m. already.
Still, I know from two sources at Fox News that many at the network are loath to hear Trump relitigate 2020. (Some see it as bad politics, and some as bad for business. Remember the Dominion settlement?) I noticed that today’s “Fox & Friends” barely previewed tonight’s speech at all.
Sean Hannity will surely hand over his time slot to the president. But for the other cablers, it’s more complicated. A spokesperson for MS NOW did not get back to me about any coverage plans.
A CNN spokesperson declined to comment on coverage plans.
If Trump were making an announcement about the war in Iran, the answer would be obvious — yes, broadcasters would carry the address.
And if he were holding a MAGA rally, the answer would be equally obvious — the broadcasters would ignore it.
But in this case, the White House isn’t specifying what the speech is about. On Tuesday, Trump said it would focus on “free and fair elections” and a “couple of other things.” On Wednesday, Karoline Leavitt said, “Nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say, which is why everyone should tune in.”
The best, though still imperfect, analogy to today might be Joe Biden’s 2022 speech in Philly about MAGA threats to democracy.
The broadcasters declined to show the speech live, which aggravated the White House and many Democratic voters. But the broadcasters judged it to be a partisan political speech in an election season without concrete “news” in it. On cable, Fox News openly mocked the speech rather than showing it live.
We’re back in an election season now. But Trump is claiming he’ll make “news.”
There’s one other factor that can’t be ignored. The Trump administration has put all sorts of pressure on the networks. The FCC is actively investigating the parent companies of ABC and NBC.
Last night on NewsNation, Brendan Carr was asked if the broadcasters should interrupt prime time for Trump’s speech, and Carr said, “Of course.”
Andrew Kirell writes: “To air, or not to air” has been a conundrum for TV networks for as long as Trump has been on the political stage. So, this morning, I’m struck by a strong sense of déjà vu.
In 2019, TV execs agonized over whether to hand over prime time to Trump for an immigration address expected to be highly political and full of falsehoods. And in 2020, debates over carrying his notoriously freewheeling Covid-19 briefings roiled cable newsrooms, where staffers warned that airing his medical misinformation could pose an actual danger to viewers. Networks increasingly cut away from the speeches or declined to carry him altogether.
So tonight’s dilemma is deeply familiar. But the difference now, perhaps, is that Trump has spent his second term threatening broadcasters and targeting media companies. Network executives are now deciding what belongs on their air while knowing Trump is watching — and keeping score.
At the same time, most Americans disapprove of Trump, don’t believe his election lies, and might resent networks that give him a prime-time platform for those lies. They’re keeping score, too…
The New York Times filed a motion yesterday to challenge the unusual subpoenas issued to several of its reporters last week. David McCraw urged a court to quash the subpoenas, calling the orders “abusive,” “improper,” and “brought in bad faith to punish The Times for its coverage.” Here’s my full story.
Meanwhile, CNN’s Kristen Holmes, Holmes Lybrand and Hannah Rabinowitz reported stunning new details about the government’s leak hunt. Their story is a classic of the “leaks about leaks” genre…
NYT executive editor Joe Kahn addressed the subpoenas in this new video, saying, “We’re going to continue to report — both about Air Force One, and on the circumstances around the government use of prosecutorial power to intimidate the independent news media.”
“I’ve been a foreign correspondent in China,” Kahn went on, “and I’ve seen the way an authoritarian government can keep journalists from reporting on a huge amount of news and information that’s very clearly in the public interest. It’s really essential to American democracy that that kind of erosion of press freedoms not happen here.”
Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin now has oversight of the state AG antitrust case against Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. She is already handling the consumer case against the deal brought by Paramount+ subscribers. There’s a hearing in that case later today — on a motion to dismiss and a request for a preliminary injunction — and then tomorrow she will hold a hearing on the states’ request for a TRO against the merger.
>> Paramount had sought more time to respond to the TRO request and several additional weeks to prepare an evidentiary case against the suit, while still pushing for a ruling in time to close the deal before September 30 — the deadline before the costly “ticking fee” kicks in. Last night, Martinez-Olguin declined to revisit the schedule, leaving tomorrow’s TRO hearing in place.
Yet another lawsuit has been filed to stop Paramount from taking over CNN’s parent company. It’s a shareholder derivative complaint in Delaware filed by Paul Robbins and backed by Freedom of the Press Foundation and the Public Integrity Project. The suit accuses “David Ellison and his father, Oracle scion Larry Ellison, of striking an illegal deal with President Trump for approval of the merger,” THR’s Winston Cho reports.
Paramount reacted to the suit with a proverbial eye-roll yesterday, saying the complaint “recycles allegations that have already been reported and already addressed.”
Trump allies continue to say that the Democratic state AG case against Paramount is really all about CNN, even though the lawsuit’s text is clearly about film distribution and TV channel licensing.
That CNN-centric view was expressed by the aforementioned Brendan Carr yesterday at the Hill Nation Summit in DC. Carr invoked Puck’s disputed story about Bonta wanting a spinoff of CNN and said, “I don’t understand what antitrust theory you have that says there’s a problem with this acquisition that is made or broken based on one cable channel being included.”
There’s only one problem: Bonta has not advanced that theory in public — not at all. Bonta replied to Carr via X last night: “I’ve literally never said this. Spinning off one channel from a media conglomerate is not a sufficient remedy to protect consumers and preserve competition in the film and television industry.”
Carr responded by… sending a link to the Puck story.
Bonta’s opponents say he’s all over the map on this topic of “structural remedies” that would satisfy the AGs. My read is that, yes, Bonta would like to avoid Paramount owning CNN — he told Oliver Darcy that a divestiture of CNN “would definitely have value” as part of the states’ negotiations — but that he wants/needs more than that. He said on KQED’s “Forum” yesterday that “we would be interested in considering structural remedies,” plural, not just a single remedy.
Sen. Cory Booker pressed Todd Blanche yesterday about the federal approval of Paramount–WBD, given that, according to this June WSJ report, the career antitrust staffers investigating the deal were inclined to challenge it, but Trump-aligned senior leadership waved it through.
Booker asked: “Did the career attorneys who investigated that deal recommend closing that investigation?”
Blanche said, “I didn’t have a conversation with the career” staffers. He later added, “I’m not sure what the view was with respect to closing it or not closing it.”
That, in effect, confirms the Journal’s report, which said leadership OK’d the deal “before career staffers who were concerned about the acquisition had an opportunity to object.” Imagine what it’s like for those career staffers…
New this morning: “The US government is looking to participate in Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC, in a move that would further complicate the flagship defamation dispute,” the FT’s Daniel Thomas and Ella Lee report.
The possibility has understandably “raised concerns at the BBC over the fudging of edges between the interests of the state and the president.”
In its filed response, the BBC said the “conflict of interest is clear and stark.” Here’s a gift link to the article…
TV station ownership groups have been seeking this for years, and now it’s happening: The FCC will vote on August 6 to repeal the national broadcast ownership rule, which prohibits a single company from owning stations reaching more than 39% of US TV households.
The looming vote is a victory for Trump-aligned media moguls. Democratic commissioner Anna Gomez calls it an “unlawful effort to hand control of the public airwaves to billionaire buddies of this administration.” There will be legal challenges since Congress set the rule in the first place. Here’s our full story…
While the likes of Sinclair and Nexstar are getting good news from the FCC, Disney is getting bad news: Bloomberg’s Kelcee Griffis reports that Carr’s agency is expected to take action against Disney “as soon as next month,” once the public comment periods for its two ABC probes are over.
MS NOW toasted its 30th anniversary with a reunion dinner and an announcement about a day-long live event in Texas. Natalie Korach detailed it all in this dispatch for Status last night.
Versant CEO Mark Lazarus said at the dinner that what Rebecca Kutler “and the team have now built, separating from NBC News, building a newsroom, changing the team, building us success for the future is amazing. We are on a very big high right now. We have a lot of momentum.”
>> CNN and Bangor Daily News will host a debate on July 23 for the Democrats running to replace Graham Platner on the ballot. Jake Tapper, Dana Bash and BDN political editor Michael Shepherd will moderate. (CNN)
>> Reliable alum Oliver Darcy is “moving into live events” with the first “Status Summit,” slated for September 9 in NYC. (Variety)
>> Weijia Jiang handed off the White House Correspondents’ Association to the group’s next president, Jacqui Heinrich, yesterday. (Instagram)
>> An important story by Eleanor Watson and James LaPorta: “Pentagon proposes new secrecy power to withhold unclassified records from public-access laws.” (CBS)
>> New this morning: Ofcom in the UK “opened an investigation into TikTok over whether the platform has complied with its duties under the Online Safety Act to protect children from harmful content,” Mizy Clifton reports. (Politico)
>> Elon Musk’s xAI has sued a user, “alleging he used the Grok chatbot to create child sexual abuse materials. It’s one of the first lawsuits filed by a tech company against users who allegedly create explicit content with AI.” (CNN)
>> Yesterday marked Twitter’s 20th birthday. Neil Vidgor looks back on the company now known as X, and the many changes it’s undergone since 2006. (NYT)
Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” hits theaters this afternoon, and Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro reports the film is eyeing “an opening frame of $85 million [to] $100 million domestic, with another $110 million overseas in 73 territories and 22,700 screens for a global start that’s bound to be $200 million plus.”
On Metacritic, the epic has earned an 88, while Rotten Tomatoes has labeled the movie “Certified Fresh” with 97%. I loved reading this Variety story from Brent Lang about fans who’ve been “snapping up tickets to multiple showtimes months in advance or even settling for 2 a.m. screenings of the nearly three-hour epic just so they can be part of the moviegoing phenomenon.”
This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.