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US broadcasters such as MSNBC or CBS stopped broadcasting Trump’s speech to verify that it was real. Broadcasters have learned something new in four years, and now they are fed up.
It is no longer broadcast in its entirety: Trump speaks on television.
Photo: Keystone
Brian Williams, the man from MSNBC, was the first to turn off the sound. “We are once again in the unusual situation that we not only have to interrupt the president of the United States, but we also have to correct him.”
Only 35 seconds had passed into a speech in which Trump claimed, among other things, that he had won the election based on “legitimate votes.” “What the president says is not based on reality, and at this point it is simply dangerous,” Williams said later.
Interruption after almost half a minute: Trump’s speech on MSNBC.
MSNBC has a strong left-liberal orientation and in the past has even refrained from broadcasting Trump’s speeches live. But ABC and CBS also interrupted the appearance, which Trump had set Thursday at 6:30 p.m. ET to benefit from the powerful late-night news.
“At this point we have to interrupt,” said NBC’s Lester Holt, “the president has made a number of statements about voter fraud that are not true.” On ABC it was said that with respect to Donald Trump’s speech there were “some things that need to be verified”, which then happened. National Public Radio also interrupted Trump.
“No evidence”
It is not the first time that broadcasters have disconnected Trump. In the spring, he held numerous meandering news events on the coronavirus situation, which either ABC or NBC shut down after a few minutes, though the president continued to speak for a time.
In a democracy, it is rarely the media’s job to shut down the voice of government officials, but now there is growing concern in the United States that President Trump’s wild speculation could undermine belief in the democratic process.
CNN and Fox News aired Trump’s latest remarks, but CNN warned them: “Trump says they are betraying him without providing evidence.” The phrase “without any evidence” has become something of the standard disclaimer that every Trump report begins with.
This is a huge difference from the beginning of the Trump presidency. At the time it was said that if the president posted a tweet, it was probably national news. Trump’s tweets are no longer showing up and Twitter is warning them much more often than before. To avoid that, the Trump administration apparently issued a press release Thursday for the first time in US history, which was written exclusively in capital letters.
It is astonishing how nonchalantly the news channels are now stamping Trump’s remarks on the ground. They are just “pathetic,” Jake Tapper said on CNN. He also made the funniest phrase about Trump, it comes from the phase where it was not yet known if the president would soon appear before the world. “They probably put him in a sack and now they’re holding him in a basement somewhere.”
