On Monday, Donald Trump demanded networks give him airtime for a prime time address from the Oval Office to discuss "what he called the crisis at the southern border."
Since the border is actually secure, this is a made-up crisis by Trump, who is more interested in appeasing right wing extremist AM talk show hosts and Fox News personalities than the 330 million constituents and those federal employees that are not being paid he represents.
The major television networks like CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX have no obligation to cut into their primetime schedule to air his remarks live and unfiltered. They should not indulge him. In fact, they should do what they did to Barack Obama when HE requested prime time to air his immigration concerns.
In 2014, all of the major networks refused a request from President Barack Obama, when he wanted to address the nation to present his plan for immigration reform to the American people.
At 8pm, instead of seeing the president outlining his long-awaited overhaul of one of the country’s most hotly debated statutes, ABC viewers were treated to an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Those tuning in to CBS were presented with an episode of The Big Bang Theory; Fox network viewers saw Bones; and viewers tuning to NBC were be able to enjoy The Biggest Loser: Glory Days.
Trump won the election with help from TV networks who gave him millions and millions of dollars of free ad time with unfettered rally coverage. They must not do that again. That was their worry when Obama asked.
Cable news channels like Fox News and CNN carried the address, and some of the networks carried it on their digital platforms, but a network insider told Politico on Thursday the speech’s content was too “overtly political” to broadcast.
It's up to the major networks to make a stand and not reward Trump for reneging to Mitch McConnell's Senate and the entire Congress by vetoing a bipartisan deal to keep the govt open until February 8th.
The Democratic party received an incredible endorsement to rebuff Trump's crazy antics by the Tsunami blue wave midterm election, and a message was sent: No one wants his stupid wall and no one wants a government shutdown no matter what Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh say.
We can only hope the networks take a hint and make the only ethical decision. They are not obligated to give Donald Trump prime time so he can air his xenophobic lies to the nation.
