Donald Trump is seriously pissed that President Joe Biden plans to address the nation Wednesday night, the first time he has spoken publicly directly since isolating for Covid-19 last week, ending his reelection campaign, and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris over the weekend.
There’s obviously a lot to talk about—but Trump (predictably) wants to talk, too, even if he doesn’t have anything new to say.
In response to Biden’s announcement that he would address the country at 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday to discuss “what lies ahead, and how I will finish the job for the American people,” the Trump campaign’s general counsel David Warrington sent letters to ABC, NBC, and CBS demanding that the former president be granted equal airtime, according to The New York Times.
In the letter, Warrington wrote that because Biden will likely address his endorsement of Harris, it “appears that President Biden’s speech will not be a bona fide news event, but rather, a prime-time campaign commercial.”
Warrington cited the Federal Communications Commission’s “equal time” rule, arguing that Trump should be given equal time for a “campaign speech.”
Under rules installed in the 1970s, news stations are no longer required to give equal time to candidates for “bona fide news events,” such as presidential speeches or news conferences. When that rule was implemented, critics noted that it gave an incumbent president an inherent advantage when it came to news coverage in an election cycle. If they had a problem with that, one can scarcely imagine how disturbed they’d be by how powerful the American president has become.
None of the outlets Trump’s team reached out to had responded by Tuesday night, and it’s unclear if they will. Maybe some of Trump’s meandering 92-minute address at last week’s Republican National Convention can carry over somehow?
All of this goes to show just how scared Trump is of his new opponent., Harris’s apparent edge has sent the former president on several tantrums in just the few days since her candidacy was announced, and scrambling for a way to get out of the next presidential debate.
Warrington also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission over Harris’s so-called “heist” of Biden’s campaign’s $91.5 million war chest. But legal experts argue that she’s within her rights to take over the money, because as Biden’s running mate, she was named as a recipient on the principal campaign committee that raised the money.
