Two major broadcast networks did not preempt their regular programming for President Trump's primetime address on Thursday. ABC aired an episode of the game show Press Your Luck while NBC broadcast a nature documentary rerun. Trump responded to what he viewed as a snub by describing it as part of a coordinated "plot" during the speech itself. Fox News carried most of the address live, and CBS interrupted its regular schedule to air a special report on the announcement.

The networks' decisions reflect an increasingly unpredictable approach to presidential addresses, departing from historical norms in which such speeches were treated as mandatory television events. All four major networks declined President Obama's 2014 immigration reform address as overly political, yet those same networks aired Trump's 2019 border-wall speech without hesitation. The White House did not appear to submit a formal request for airtime before this speech, with Trump simply announcing it would occur, a factor that may have influenced broadcasters' editorial decisions.