Television networks who have committed to airing President Trump’s speech on his proposed border wall all said they will air rebuttal by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Television networks are facing unusual pressure surrounding their responsibility to point out false or misleading statements after granting President Donald Trump’s request to air his Oval Office speech on the proposed border wall and partial government shutdown.
The four largest broadcast networks and top cable news networks agreed to carry Trump’s speech and the Democratic response, which will be offered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
It’s rare, but not unprecedented, for networks to say no to a presidential request for airtime. Some of the president’s opponents had argued that Trump shouldn’t get the airtime because he couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth.
Television executives were talking internally about ways to fact-check Trump, such as dedicating staff to parse statements the way it is often done after a presidential address, to the more extreme approach of pointing out through chyrons, or text displayed on the air, in the event of a verifiable false statement.
NBC said it would fact-check livestreams of both speeches through pinned comments on its Facebook page and through comments on the NBC and MSNBC Twitter accounts.
