‘Lie after lie after lie’ – TV networks cut off live speech
In unprecedented scenes, US channels interrupt broadcast as Trump claims election has been rigged
‘Here we are again in the position of not only interrupting the president of the United States but correcting the president of the United States’
SEVERAL US television networks cut away from a live speech by Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday after he repeated allegations that the election was being stolen from him.
CBS, ABC, NBC and MSNBC stopped airing the president’s address, arguing his statements were baseless. The speech came as his leads in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia continued to dwindle.
NBC’S Lester Holt said on air: “We have to interrupt here because the president has made a number of false statements, including the notion that there has been fraudulent voting. There has been no evidence of that.”
Norah O’donnell broke in on CBS to ask reporter Nancy Cordes to fact-check his assertion that if “legal votes” were counted he would easily win the election. Ms Cordes said there was no indication of a substantive number of illegal votes cast, and that a reference to votes arriving late was “another falsehood”.
CBS presenter John Dickerson said the president’s speech “felt like kind of a deflated recitation”. And MSNBC cut away from Mr Trump to anchor Brian Williams, who said: “Here we are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the president of the United States but correcting the president of the United States. There are no illegal votes that we know of; there has been no Trump victory that we know of.”
USA Today also interrupted its website’s live video feed. Nicole Carroll, editor-in-chief, said: “Our job is to spread truth, not unfounded conspiracies.”
CNN and the conservative Fox News showed in full the 16 minute 43 second speech. CNN ran a caption under Mr Trump stating: “Without any evidence, Trump says he’s being cheated.”
One CNN presenter, Anderson Cooper, said Mr Trump was “like an obese turtle on his back, flailing in the hot sun, realising his time was over.” Jake Tapper, another CNN anchor, was scathing: “What a sad night for the United States to hear their president say that – to falsely accuse people of trying to steal the election, to try to attack democracy in that way with this feast of falsehoods – lie after lie after lie. Pathetic.”
Even Fox News’ support for Mr Trump was at best half-hearted. While not ruling out the possibility of irregularities, commentators Bill Bennett and Byron York said it was up to the president’s lawyers to present the evidence.
John Roberts, its White House correspondent, added: “What we saw tonight is a president who believes that at the end of the day, when all the votes are counted, the election is not going to go his way, so he’s trying to plan an alternate route to retain the White House.”
Recently, Mr Trump’s relationship with Fox has become fractious. On election day, appearing on the morning show Fox & Friends, he complained about the station covering campaign speeches by Barack Obama.
“Fox puts him on more than anybody else, which is sort of shocking to me, because Fox has changed a lot,” he said. “And somebody said ‘What’s the biggest difference between this and four years ago,’ and I say, ‘Fox.’ It’s much different.”
Fox sought to restore relations, with staff at Fox instructed not to describe Mr Biden as “president-elect” while the president’s legal challenges played out in the courts. Even the Trump-supporting New York Post was sceptical of the speech, headlining its story: “Donald Trump makes baseless election fraud claims in White House address.”