NBC and ABC Skip Live Broadcast of Trump's Election Speech, White House Calls Networks "Cowards"

The split screen

Donald Trump delivered a prime-time White House address Thursday night, July 16, on what he called election security. NBC and ABC did not air it live on their broadcast networks, choosing instead to stream it on digital platforms. CNN also declined to run it live, opting for a panel discussion instead. CBS, Fox News and MS Now (the network formerly known as MSNBC) aired large portions of the speech live, according to The Guardian.

The divide isn't unprecedented. Networks have skipped live coverage of speeches by Barack Obama and Joe Biden before, according to Mediaite reporting cited by IrishStar. But the split drew an immediate, angry response from the White House.

Steven Cheung, the White House Director of Communications, posted on X calling NBC and ABC "cowards" who "don't want you to hear the truth" and claimed the administration "always get[s] bigger ratings than any of the networks." NBC confirmed to Mediaite that it would not air the speech live. An ABC spokesperson told Mediaite the network would instead run the address on ABC News Live and ABC News Radio, with anchored coverage and the ability to break into regular programming if news broke.

What Trump actually said

Trump's remarks centered on what he called "the deep state" and alleged Chinese efforts to "meddle" in the U.S. election system, according to The Guardian. He has spent years asserting, without evidence, that his 2020 loss to Joe Biden was the result of fraud. Numerous courts and multiple recounts found no evidence of large-scale fraud in that election, a fact The Guardian and the Jerusalem Post both note plainly.

Ahead of the speech, Reuters reported that the White House was weighing whether to disclose intelligence gathered during Trump's first term (2017-2021) regarding China's intentions or capability to interfere in the 2020 election. Four sources told Reuters some Trump administration officials worried the material could be misleading if presented without context. Sources told Reuters the intelligence did not show that Beijing manipulated or changed any votes.

A White House task force led by conservative journalist John Solomon had spent weeks reviewing the underlying intelligence documents ahead of the address, according to a source familiar with the group's work cited by Reuters. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that "the president will be making a very important announcement with respect to the integrity of our elections," adding that "everything he is saying will be backed by facts and by evidence."

Democrats push back before the speech even aired

Democratic members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence sent a letter, reported by the Jerusalem Post, warning Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, along with the leaders of the FBI, CIA and NSA, not to let Trump "weaponize intelligence to support false claims about election security." Sitting members of Congress publicly warned intelligence chiefs against cooperating with a presidential speech before it happened. Neither the Office of the Director of National Intelligence nor the CIA responded to Reuters' requests for comment ahead of the address.

If genuine intelligence exists showing foreign attempts to influence U.S. elections in 2020 or since, that's a legitimate national security matter voters have a right to know about, regardless of who is delivering the message. The problem, according to Reuters' sourcing, is that the specific China intelligence under review from Trump's first term did not show Beijing actually manipulated or changed votes, only that intent or capability may have existed. Conflating "attempted interference" with "successful vote manipulation" is exactly the kind of framing multiple Trump officials reportedly worried would be misleading.

How the networks covered it, and how they diverged

MS Now aired roughly half the speech. Anchor Jen Psaki, the network's 9 p.m. host and a former Biden White House press secretary, told viewers beforehand that "this speech is not going to be about this country, and it is not going to be about the American people and the challenges people face," according to The Guardian. About 15 minutes in, Psaki cut into the broadcast to push back on Trump's election claims.

CBS ran the speech as a special report and cut in roughly 20 minutes later with anchor Tony Dokoupil and chief White House correspondent Major Garrett. Dokoupil told viewers beforehand that "much of what the president has said on this topic has been false," specifically citing Trump's false claim that he won the 2020 election, but said CBS considered it newsworthy regardless.

CNN instead ran a panel with commentators from across the political spectrum, displaying an on-air graphic reading "Trump Gives Address On Elections After Years of False Claims." Anchor Kaitlan Collins told viewers CNN would monitor the remarks without airing them live.

The unresolved question is what, if anything, in Trump's speech constitutes new evidence versus a repackaging of claims already rejected by courts and recounts. IrishStar reported that even some Republican allies were uneasy about the timing, given voter focus on cost-of-living issues over election fraud, and that the address arrived amid heightened tensions with Iran and rising fuel prices. Whether any of the underlying China intelligence gets formally declassified or released to Congress, rather than summarized in a political speech, remains an open question the Democratic committee letter to Gabbard, the FBI, CIA and NSA directly raises.