Will TV Networks Carry Trump's Big '2020 Election Lies' Speech Tonight, Or Cat Videos?
You already know which you'd rather see.
Donald Trump has some really important news to tell the nation, which is why he’s giving a prime-time speech from the Oval Office at 9 o’clock Eastern tonight. The really important news is likely to be the completely new and original claim that he actually won the 2020 election but had the election stolen from him, only this time with new irrefutable evidence that is neither new nor irrefutable. Maybe CHINA rigged the elections for Biden! Maybe the lack of evidence that China did that is simply proof of how well Biden covered it up!
Trump also might try to claim that Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock didn’t really win their elections in Georgia in 2020, possibly because “suitcases of votes,” because MAGA still believes that debunked libelslander against two elections workers, for which Rudy Giuliani finally reached a settlement in 2025. (Yeah, we’d forgotten that he ever paid a cent in that case, too!)
Trump and his propagandists have made an extravagant show of pretending to be coy about what exactly he’ll be lying about tonight, because building hype and speculation is all that matters. On Tuesday, when he was asked whether he’d be rehashing his lies about “election machines and election integrity,” Trump answered with the sizzle and vagueness of a C-minus student at carnival barker school:
“It will concern that subject and a couple of other things. I’d rather save it, but it’s really big news. It’s really, really big news. Our country has to shape up. But that’s what we’re going to be talking about Thursday, it doesn’t get bigger. Without free and fair elections you don’t have a country. We’ll be discussing other things too, but it’s going to be a very big announcement.”
Oh the excitement.
White House Lies Secretary Karoline Leavitt offered her own spin on the nothing Tuesday, saying that “Anonymous sources are speculating about what President Trump will say during his speech on Thursday evening. The truth is, nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say, which is why everyone should tune in.”
Leavitt followed that up in today’s White House press briefing by promising that Trump’s revelations “will shock you if you have an honest eye listening to the president tonight, and everything he is saying will be backed by facts and by evidence that will be provided this evening.” Leavitt did not explain the mystical process by which one can listen with one’s eyes.
Since it’s a given that if Trump brings up the 2020 election, he’ll lie his ass off about it, news outlets are faced once again with the eternal question of whether to carry the speech live or to simply report on what Trump lied about after it’s over. As Axios notes, broadcast TV networks have to choose whether to “air potential 2020 election falsehoods, or risk backlash from a White House that's shown little hesitation in confronting the media.”
Trump’s pet FCC commissioner Brendan Carr hasn’t said whether he will try to punish network affiliate stations if the networks don’t carry the speech, but that’s always a concern when Great Leader demands attention.
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According to Politico, there’s also a big fight inside the White House over just how batshit Trump’s speech should be when it comes to allegations about foreign governments (but not Russia) interfering in US elections. Not that there are any adults in any of the executive mansion’s remaining rooms, but it seems top staffers have
drafted a version of the speech they believe is grounded in claims fully supported by the intelligence. But another camp — including acting DNI Bill Pulte and right-wing media figure John Solomon — is pushing Trump to go beyond what his senior advisers are comfortable with.
See also this Media Matters review of all the slimy slime Solomon has been pushing on rightwing media in advance of the speech, including the very dubious suggestion that China tried to submit fake ballots for Biden, which is why Democrats must not be allowed to vote in the midterms.
As the Poynter Institute’s Tom Jones explains, news organizations could choose from three main options for covering Trump’s election-lies speech:
Carry the address live in its entirety and then follow up by fact-checking and contextualizing Trump’s comments.
Carry the address live but cut away if Trump starts saying things that are untrue, explaining why.
Decline to air the speech at all, and instead follow up with reporting, including fact checks and highlights, of what Trump said.
The safest option with Trump is almost always the third one, since the man lies constantly.
That’s what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) called for Tuesday, telling MeidasTouch reporter Pablo Manríquez, “I don’t think that we should be contributing to any platforming of lies about our election. […] I think that we have an ethical obligation to not air things that undermine our election that are not rooted in evidence and fact.”
White House spokestroll Davis Ingle, asked to comment, told The Independent, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the dumbest and most radical members of Congress. The great people of New York’s 14th congressional district deserve much better,” and then Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin gave Ingle a medal.
Yr Wonkette will probably say something about Trump’s speech tomorrow, if he says anything worth covering, including any interesting lies you should know about. As counter-programming, we proudly leave you with this livestream of train traffic at Tokyo’s Shinjuku station, which will be more informative and interesting. By the time Trump speaks it will be about 10 a.m. in Tokyo, and the commuter trains will be bustling!
You certainly don’t need a tinpot dictator to make trains run on time, and now this is your OPEN THREAD.
[Axios / Poynter / CNN / Politico]
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I loved Maru.
Here's another famous internet cat.
Harry: Y U wake me up?
(lifts head with eyes still closed)
Me: I ask the same thing every morning.
https://substack.com/@ziggywiggy/note/c-295954596?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knfuc
“𝐈𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬. 𝐈’𝐝 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐭, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐢𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬. 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲, 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐢𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬. ..."
In other words, we've heard it all before.