TV News Braces for Electoral-Vote Certification Drama
In normal times, the certification by Congress of electoral votes for president would be, at best, a nominal news event. But these aren’t normal times.
On Wednesday, Congress is expected to complete the final step in making Joe Biden’s election official. But with some Republican lawmakers signaling that they will bow to public pressure from President Donald Trump to upend the electoral-college certification — a process rarely infused with drama and described by the Constitution as a fairly routine counting exercise — television-news is gearing up for event coverage.
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MSNBC will kick off its coverage at 9 a.m. ET with Stephanie Ruhle on “MSNBC Live”; Hallie Jackson will then take over as anchor for two hours of special coverage from Washington, D.C., beginning at 10 a.m. ET. At noon ET, coverage will be taken over by Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell in Washington, D.C., and Katy Tur in New York. Beginning at 4 p.m., Nicole Wallace will have updates on “Deadline: White House.” On broadcast, NBC News plans to cut in with live coverage anchored by Lester Holt with Kasie Hunt, Peter Alexander and Geoff Bennett.
Norah O’Donnell will lead CBS’ live coverage beginning around 1 p.m. ET. She’ll be joined by Nancy Cordes, Ben Tracy, Nikole Killion, Major Garrett and Ed O’Keefe in-studio. ABC News also plans to cut into programming around 1 p.m. Wednesday with coverage anchored by Tom Llamas.
Fox News will present live coverage anchored by Harris Faulkner beginning at 1 p.m. ET, with Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum and Chris Wallace. Brit Hume and Katie Pavlich will provide analysis and commentary. Chad Pergram and Mike Emanuel will report from Capitol Hill.
Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper will lead coverage for CNN beginning at 9 a.m. ET with special report “The Presidential Election: Congress Certifies the Vote.” Cooper will then join Dana Bash, Wolf Blitzer, John King, Abby Phillip and Jake Tapper from noon to 7 p.m. Jim Acosta and Kaitlan Collins will report live from the White House, with Lauren Fox, Phil Mattingly and Manu Raju at the Capitol.
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