Rep. Fine to Newsmax: 'Very Troubling' Networks Skipped Trump Speech

Three networks had the chance to carry a sitting president's prime-time address to the country and decided the country didn't need to see it live. That's the part worth sitting with. Whatever you think of Trump, whatever you think of the speech itself, a live address from the Oval Office or wherever he delivered it from used to be treated as a basic function of the press, not a programming decision to be weighed against ratings for something else.

Randy Fine calling it "very troubling" isn't hyperbole. It's the obvious reaction of anyone who remembers when this wasn't a debate. CNN, ABC and NBC didn't used to ask themselves whether a president's remarks were worth interrupting the schedule for. They just did it, because informing people about what their government is doing was considered part of the job description, not an editorial choice about whether the guy in office deserves the airtime.

What's frustrating is how predictable the defense will be. Networks will say they covered it after the fact, or that cable news carried it, or that streaming exists now anyway. None of that answers the actual question, which is why a decision that used to be automatic suddenly isn't when this particular president is the one talking. If the answer is that they just don't trust their own audience to watch and decide for themselves, that's a bigger admission than they probably want to make.

None of this requires anyone to like the speech. It just requires the networks to stop pretending skipping it was a neutral call.