“It Does Not Fix The Fact That We Broadcast It”: Rachel Maddow And Other MSNBC Hosts Grapple With Decision To Carry Donald Trump’s Speech Live
06.03.2024 - 06:55
/ deadline.com
All of the major news networks carried Donald Trump‘s Super Tuesday victory speech live, but MSNBC was the first to cutaway, reflecting an debate at news outlets over how to cover the former president’s fusillade of false claims and unfounded accusations.
Rachel Maddow, leading coverage on the network, was clearly disturbed over the airtime given to Trump, in which he made unfounded claims about the weaponization of the Justice Department and took credit for the rise in the stock market.
As Trump went on, Maddow cut in and told viewers, “Okay, I will say that it is a decision that we revisit constantly in terms of the balance between allowing somebody to knowingly lie on your air about things they lied about before, and you can predict they are going to lie about, and so therefore it is irresponsible to allow them to do that.”
She added, “The balance between knowing that that’s irresponsible to broadcast, and also knowing that the de facto, soon-to-be-de facto nominee of the Republican party — this is not only the man who was likely to be the Republican candidate for president, but this is the way he is running.”
Stephanie Ruhle then chimed in, saying, “Here’s how we balance it: Why don’t we fact check the hell out of him?”
Maddow responded, “So we do that after the fact, and that is the best remedy that we got. It does not fix the fact that we broadcast it.”
Then, she and other networks hosts did fact check Trump, although the question of how to cover him lingered. Lawrence O’Donnell later suggested that networks “could give him half the screen,” while the other half would feature a real-time fact-checking scroll. “You know he is going to say all of this stuff repeatedly. Just put it there right beside him on the