MSNBC, CNN Refuse to Air Donald Trump’s Victory Speech in Iowa but Air Haley and DeSantis Speeches

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump takes the stage at a caucu
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Kristina Wong

MSNBC and CNN refused to air former President Donald Trump’s Republican Iowa caucus victory speech Monday evening, while airing fellow candidates’ speeches.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow announced on-air that Trump had just began giving his speech but that the network decided not to air it because it did not want to knowingly broadcast “untrue things.”

She said:

At this point in the evening, the projected winner of the Iowa caucuses has just started giving his victory speech. We will keep an eye on that as it happens. We will let you know if there’s any news made in that speech if there’s anything noteworthy, something substantive and important. The reason I’m saying this is, of course, there is a reason that we and other news organizations have generally stopped giving an unfiltered Live platform to remarks by former President Trump and is not out of spite it is not a decision that we relish it is a decision that we regularly revisit and honestly earnestly it is not an easy decision. But there is a cost to us as a news organization, knowingly broadcasting untrue things as a fundamental truth of our business and who we are and so his remarks tonight will not air here live we will monitor them and let you know about any news that he makes.

CNN was not much better, airing only a short portion of Trump’s speech, until he began talking about the border.

According to Media Research Center’s Newsbusters.org website, CNN show host Jake Tapper cut away from Trump’s speech after he said, “We are going to seal at the border. Because, right now, we have an invasion. We have an invasion of millions and millions of people that are coming into our country. I can’t imagine why they think that’s a good thing.”

Tapper interrupted, saying:

Donald Trump declaring victory with a historically strong showing in the Iowa caucuses. If these numbers hold, the biggest victory for a non-incumbent president in the modern era for this contest. A relatively subdued speech as the things go so far. Although, here he is, right now, under my voice. You can hear him repeating his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt blasted the networks, posting, “The brass [at] @CNN and @MSNBC would not air it…because they aren’t news channels. The are channels of opinion which wish to exclude center-right opinion, with consequent deep damage to their ‘news’ brands.”

Both MSNBC and CNN aired speeches by Trump’s rivals, however.

Both cable networks ran former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s speech.

And the networks also carried Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s speech in full:

Author Michael Shellenberger mocked the networks for trying to “protect their fragile viewers” from Trump, calling it “elite panic.” He posted on X:

Trump won every county in Iowa thus CNN and MSNBC must protect their fragile viewers from his utterances. We are witnessing an elite panic. It’s as primitive and superstitious as the one that declared some women to be witches capable of casting spells.

Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on ”X”, Truth Social, or on Facebook.

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