Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of NY, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of Calif., walk from the West Wing to speak to reporters after meeting with President Donald Trump about border security in the Situation Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 4, 2018, in Washington. (Photo: AP)
Television networks airing US President Donald Trump’s Oval Office speech on his proposed border wall and the partial government shutdown have also committed to airing the Democratic response to the president.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say they will make the case themselves. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox broadcasting, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and MSNBC all said they would air the rebuttal.
The dueling remarks come in the third week of the shutdown over the president’s insistence that congressional Democrats approve more than $5 billion in spending for the US-Mexico border wall. Democrats have refused to pay for it.
Trump’s opponents have urged television networks to be aggressive in fact-checking any false statements.