Topline
President Donald Trump attacked ABC and NBC and called for their broadcast licenses to be revoked, after the two networks did not carry his primetime speech on Thursday night, where he accused China of illegally accessing U.S. voter data and restated his long-running grievances about election security in the country.
President Donald Trump gestures after speaking in the East Room of the White House.
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Key Facts
Aside from NBC and ABC, CNN also did not carry the president’s speech live, while CBS aired most of the address in a special segment anchored by Tony Dokoupil with major disclaimers about Trump’s previous falsehoods about the 2020 elections.
In his speech, the president mentioned that NBC and ABC news, in a “rare move,” were not covering his speech live—although there have been other previous instances of networks not preempting the schedule for a presidential address.
Without offering any evidence, Trump accused the networks and “others in the media” of being engaged in “a plot” and claimed, “they know how corrupt our system is and they don’t want to reveal it.”
Despite there being no evidence of widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections, Trump said the networks want to “continue this fraud…keep it going” and “protect the radical left.”
The president then appeared to describe NBC and ABC’s refusal to air his speech as an act of “fraud” and said this “should mean a revocation of their licenses.”
Insisting that “this can’t be allowed to continue,” Trump railed against the networks for using “our public multi-billion dollar in value airways for absolutely no money.”
Tangent
Although Fox News carried the president’s speech in its entirety at one point, the network chimed in with a disclaimer about Trump’s claims. A Fox News anchor said, “We…heard the president make claims that electronic voting machines are vulnerable and easily compromised. Fox News has not seen the evidence yet and is not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the president’s statement and claims.”