Networks Cave On Carrying Trump’s Shutdown Speech

Variety reports:

Major broadcast and cable networks will carry President Donald Trump’s prime time speech on border security, as the White House tries to use the power of the bully pulpit to break an impasse with Democrats that has led to the partial government shutdown.

The White House requested primetime at 9 p.m. ET for the speech, but the broadcast networks engaged in some deliberation as to whether to carry it amid concerns that it would be merely a political event or that Trump would have to be extensively fact-checked for falsehoods in his remarks.

The broadcast networks in 2014 declined to air President Barack Obama’s primetime address on immigration, reportedly because it was seen as “overtly political.”