When Donald Trump delivered the first White House address of his second presidency Wednesday night, all major U.S. networks beamed his image and voice onto their airwaves, cable feeds and online platforms.
Americans ended up watching the Republican president stand in the Diplomatic Reception Room and deliver 18 minutes of aggressive, politically motivated arguments that misstated facts, blamed the nation’s ills on his predecessor, exaggerated the results of his nearly 11 months in office and amplified his characteristically gargantuan, immeasurable promises about what’s to come.
This was no commander in chief announcing a military action or discussing a critical national issue. It was a politician’s defiant insistence that he’s doing a better job than polls suggest most Americans believe. And the spectacle raises the question of whether network executives should grant airtime to the leader of the free world for a clearly political speech simply because he asks.
“It’s not that the Oval Office and the White House haven’t been used for political speeches before,” said former NBC executive Mark Lukasiewicz, who is dean of Hofstra University’s communications school after more than a decade leading NBC’s special broadcasts, including presidential addresses.
