WASHINGTON — President Trump addressed the country across broadcast and cable channels on Tuesday, in a short Oval Office speech that drew extensive scrutiny of broadcast and cable networks and whether they were merely giving him free airtime to make unchallenged claims of a border security crisis.
“This is a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul,” Trump said in his speech, as he emphasized a sense of urgency in securing the border.
All of the broadcast networks pre-empted their primetime schedule to carry the speech, as did major cable news networks, even as Trump’s critics blasted their decision throughout the day. Once Trump finished his speech, CNN and other outlets quickly went to fact checkers to dispute some of the president’s claims.
But the networks also carried Democrats’ response, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded equal time, predicting that Trump’s speech would be “full of malice and misinformation.”
Instead, they saw his speech as a tactic to try to get out of a political predicament: The partial shutdown of the federal government, now entering its 17th day, triggered by Trump’s demand for funding for a border wall.
The unexpected length of the shutdown has raised the prospect that Trump would begin to lose support among Republicans anxious to reopen the government and doubtful of the White House strategy. Trump is scheduled to attend a Senate Republican policy lunch on Wednesday, along with Vice President Mike Pence, apparently to reassure lawmakers about the situation.
In giving a speech from the Oval Office, Trump was drawing on an often-used tactic of communication by his predecessors. But recent administrations have been more reluctant to use the Oval Office venue, seeing it as less effective in a TV universe of balkanized audiences.
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Major print publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post did live updates that included fact-checking, while The Daily Beast handed over its Twitter account to reporters who cover law enforcement and national security.