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Networks Provide Airtime to Democrats to Rebut Trump’s Border Security Speech

News Commentary
By Rusty Weiss | Featured Contributor | January 8, 2019 11:13AM

At least four major networks have caved to Democrat demands that they be allowed airtime to provide a rebuttal to President Trump’s speech on border security.

The move, allowing an opposition party equal opportunity in a primetime slot to immediately oppose the President of the United States, has few precedents but isn’t that common. Such opportunities are typically only afforded for the State of the Union address or similar speeches to joint sessions of Congress.

But then, this is the era of Trump, where the media has dropped the facade of being impartial and have all but confessed to being in the tank with the Democrat Party.

Trump is set to address the American people at 9 pm Eastern this evening. He will present his case for border security, funding for a border wall, and is most likely laying the groundwork to bypass Congress and declare a national emergency in order to bring the effort to fruition.

Democrats, fearing facts on the topic being presented to the nation, demanded the networks provide them with time to counter with their open-borders falsehoods.

“Now that the television networks have decided to air the President’s address, which if his past statements are any indication will be full of malice and misinformation, Democrats must immediately be given equal airtime,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement.

They Caved, or Colluded

CNN caved faster than Anderson Cooper choking on a tequila shot, while NBC and CBS followed suit. Fox News, the only network that typically provides two points of view on any topic matter, also said they would carry the rebuttal.

This marks one of the only times that a party has been granted response time to a speech that was not given to a joint session of Congress.

Republicans Didn’t Give Rebuttal Speech to Obama in 2011

President Barack Obama gave a speech in which he unveiled a major jobs initiative to a joint session of Congress. Republican leaders, knowing the economic outlook at the time would overshadow any tall tales told by the President, opted not to provide a response.

“Every member of Congress, and — more importantly — the American people, will provide a reaction to the president’s address,” a spokesman for then-Speaker John Boehner stated.

However, Republicans did give a rebuttal to another speech made by Obama earlier in the year that stressed the need to raise the debt ceiling.  That rebuttal was aired on some networks, including CNN:

This is a rare example, however. Republicans were given airtime for rebuttal to Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress in 2009 over the Obamacare bill, which is far more typical.

One question remains: If the Democrats are so confident in their open-borders policies and so confident that the American people do not want the wall, why not let Trump’s speech rise or fall on its own merits?

The President is also scheduled to visit the border on Thursday. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the Democrats decided to counter that as well – by actually visiting and discussing security concerns with our men and women fighting to protect the southern border?

Democrats voicing concern for the safety of the American people might be too much to ask.