Trump Demands Equal Airtime in Light of Biden’s Planned Address

As President Joe Biden planned a prime-time address from the Oval Office on Wednesday night, former President Donald Trump and his campaign sent a letter to ABC, NBC and CBS on Tuesday demanding that Trump be given equal airtime.

Biden is expected to address his decision to end his reelection campaign and outline his plans for the rest of his time in office. In a social media post, he wrote that he would discuss “what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people.”

But in the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, the Trump campaign’s general counsel, David Warrington, asserted in advance of Biden’s speech that it would most likely address Biden’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor.

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Based on that assumption, Warrington wrote, “it appears that President Biden’s speech will not be a bona fide news event, but rather, a prime-time campaign commercial.” Citing the Federal Communications Commission’s “equal time” rule, Warrington insisted that Trump be given similar time on air, arguing that Biden’s address was a “campaign speech,” even as Biden is no longer technically a candidate for the presidency.

None of the broadcast networks responded to a request for comment Tuesday night. A Trump campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump campaign’s letter was a throwback to an earlier, pre-cable era in television, when the broadcast networks were held to strict “public interest” standards to ensure that their local stations aired all sides of the issues and gave candidates equal access to the airwaves.

Until the 1970s, they were duty bound to give candidates who were challenging sitting presidents equal time to respond to televised presidential addresses and news conferences.

That changed under President Gerald Ford in 1975, when the FCC — then packed with Nixon appointees — created an exemption for “bona fide news events” like presidential speeches and news conferences, which Democrats viewed as a way to give Ford undue advantage.

Whatever the case, the exemption has remained, and the equal-time rules now generally come up in relation to appearances by federal candidates in entertainment programming.

Trump has received intense news coverage over the last two weeks, first after an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania, and then with his nightly appearances at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The final night of the convention, when Trump gave his keynote address and his first speech since the assassination attempt, drew 25.4 million viewers on Thursday night across more than a dozen cable and broadcast networks, Nielsen said. Trump’s 93-minute speech differed little in substance or in length from his standard rally stump speech.

But Biden’s announcement Sunday that he would exit the presidential race effectively pushed Trump and his convention from the spotlight. All three national broadcasters — ABC, CBS and NBC — preempted regular coverage to report on the development. And Harris’ emergent campaign has dominated coverage since.

The Trump campaign also filed a complaint on Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission accusing Biden and Harris of violating campaign finance laws by rolling Biden’s campaign funds over to Harris. The complaint, filed by Warrington, came after Biden’s team had amended the name of its campaign committee Sunday to Harris for President.

Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday at 6 p.m., two hours before Biden is expected to address the nation at 8 p.m.

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