"This is completely untrue. CNN is not on a delay," a network spokesperson said Tuesday.
Representatives for CNN and MSNBC denied a claim made by President Donald Trump's re-election campaign that the networks are intentionally delaying broadcasts of the president's daily coronavirus briefings as part of an effort to "silence him."
"MSNBC and CNN have started delaying the press conferences by about 15 seconds so that they can hear what the President is saying before filtering it for their audiences," the campaign said Tuesday night in an email blast.
It added, "They’re cutting out anything that doesn’t feed into their radical left-wing agenda. It’s sheer madness!"
But both networks denied it. "This is completely untrue," a CNN spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. "CNN is not on a delay." An MSNBC spokesperson also said the claim is "not true."
The campaign, which often traffics in mainstream media critiques, told supporters that the networks are "furious that President Trump is talking directly to the People every day during his coronavirus press conferences" and called on them to sign a petition demanding that they broadcast the briefings live and in full.
Cable news networks have faced criticism from all sides over their broadcasts of the briefings, with some viewers chiding them for airing them and Trump supporters attacking them for cutting away from the briefings when they become more political and less informational.
The briefings can run for up to two hours, forcing networks to preempt regularly scheduled programming, and normally include some of the media bashing that the president is known for.
