In a dramatic turn of events on Wednesday, President-elect Joe Biden urged President Donald Trump to condemn the violence in Capitol hills, which the latter surprisingly complied with.
TV networks faced a new dilemma with regard to this unexpected co-operation between the presidents.
Do they have an ethical duty to air the speech? What might Trump end up saying? How long can he pour gasoline on this fire spreading across the nation?
While top social media platforms deleted the speech and a few networks chose not to air it at all, others went ahead, but this time, with an obvious aversion to President Trump's rhetoric.
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The speech began with Trump saying, “we had an election stolen from us.” After the video ended, CNN’s Jake Tapper burst out, “I also want to note that in that video, he lies about the election being stolen and pours more fuel on the fire."
"He continues his shameful behavior of lying to his supporters about what happened. It is absolutely disgraceful. I feel ambivalent about the fact that we even aired it.”
"I want people to remember how they feel watching these images of the United States Capitol being taken over and these clear acts of sedition and violence and terrorism by Trump supporters, because there's going to be an attempt to white wash and pretend this didn't happen," Tapper added.
CNBC's Shepard Smith shouted after less than a minute of the speech to his producers, "Stop the tape! That is not true, and we are not airing it.”
Commentator Chuck Todd was also seen asking for removal of the photos from inside the Capitol, which shows the Trump supporters going berserk, in order to avoid the glorification of such acts in future.
After four years of Trump Presidency, TV networks that once obsessively covered Donald Trump and allowed him to set the terms of the story for them as well, seem to be trying to slowly find their way back to sanity even if it means giving the President less airtime. But is it too late to finally part ways?