Former President Donald Trump gave a speech on Friday to denounce his conviction and the preceding trial, but of the three main networks, only NBC bothered to break into their regular scheduled programming and carry it live and give their audience Trump’s perspective.
Trump began speaking at 11:06 a.m. Eastern and included a special report from anchor Lester Holt and correspondent Hallie Jackson. Trump spoke for 20 minutes until they cut him off to analyze his remarks with senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett.
At the same time, ABC stuck with the liberal ladies of The View and CBS remained with Drew Carey and The Price is Right. CBS reporter Kathryn Watson tweeted the network would only break in if Trump took questions. Later in the day, it would cover President Joe Biden's press conference about Israel's latest ceasefire proposal.
While CBS literally mused over the price of peanuts, MSNBC carried Trump’s speech from 11:06 through 11:27 as co-host Ana Cabrera interrupted to begin fact-checking with fellow co-host Jose Diaz-Balart proceeding to kick off a panel discussion alongside video of Trump speaking.
Trump’s speech ended at 11:39, but CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett interrupted him at 11:24 in order to bring on resident fact-checker Daniel Dale while also showing silenced video of Trump on the side.
The price of the trial might be right for Trump opponents, but the price is wrong for Trump and his supporters, and the media owe it to the American people to hear Trump make his case for why the whole thing was a sham.
