Former President Donald Trump’s post-arraignment speech on Tuesday night was a hot topic, but not all major cable news networks covered it live. CNN and MSNBC decided to skip it, leaving Fox News as the only network to air it in real-time. Not only did Fox News carry the entire speech, but they also went to a split screen of President Joe Biden speaking at the White House and Trump in Bedminster, NJ. The network’s chyron read, “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”
During the speech, Trump blasted special prosecutor Jack Smith and aired a long list of grievances while making the claim that Biden is behind the charges against him. However, Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special prosecutor to investigate Trump, and also appointed a special prosecutor to probe Biden’s retention of classified documents.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explained to viewers why they chose not to air the speech live. Cooper said they would monitor it for anything newsworthy, while Maddow stated that broadcasting untrue things hurts their ability to bring the news.
Later in the evening, CNN featured legal and political analysis comparing Watergate to the present moment, as a former president running to return to office attacks the legal system as illegitimate. CNN later showed excerpts of the speech, but Tapper prefaced it by telling viewers that Trump makes “untrue and unfounded claims about the charges against him and the people he thinks are behind it.”
Overall, the speech was a controversial topic, with different news networks making different decisions on how to cover it.