Back in 2016, when Hillary Clinton and her fellow Democrats claimed that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the election and was therefore an illegitimate president, the mainstream media covered it breathlessly for more than two years.

Not only that: The spurious charge that Trump had colluded with Russia resulted in the appointment of a mentally unfit special counsel, Robert Mueller, whose two-year witch hunt of an investigation wrecked the lives of a lot of people and hamstrung the Trump administration.

But on Thursday night, when Trump shared information from our intelligence agencies about the very real holes in our election system and about China’s very real efforts to interfere in our elections, the mainstream media went largely silent. Worse yet, some news networks didn’t cover the speech at all, and even those that did, like Fox News, gave it minimal coverage afterward.

And here, I’m not sure what’s worse: the networks’ censorship or “conservative” Fox News being missing in action. As Mediaite reports, “As other networks picked apart President Donald Trump’s prime-time address to the nation early Friday morning, Fox News went in a completely different direction. Fox & Friends produced not one mention of the president’s address from the night before, during which the commander in chief once again attempted to cast doubt on the integrity of American elections — pointing a finger at Venezuela and China.”

Mediaite continued, “Instead, the regular lineup of co-hosts Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt, and Lawrence Jones discussed the latest campaign of U.S. airstrikes against Iran, the air quality crisis choking much of America, disastrous flooding in Texas, the World Cup, and a ‘phenomenal’ speech — by Marco Rubio.”

Apparently, Fox News still has the yips from having gotten out over its skis regarding voting machine tampering in 2020 — which is Mission Accomplished for the Leftmedia.

Maybe those in the mainstream media believe, like Michigan Democrat Senator and former CIA officer Elissa Slotkin believes, that the wildly popular SAVE America Act “would literally allow this administration to rig our democracy so that it would be hard for any Democrat in any state to win any election.”

If by rigging she means demanding proof of citizenship and photo ID, then, well, she’s got a point. Democrats cheat at elections; it’s what they do. Indeed, it’s what they have to do because their ideas are so unpopular. And because they rarely procreate, they need to ensure that all those Third Worlders they let pour into our country during the Autopen years are able to vote for Democrats.

What’s the solution? How can the networks be forced to cover the primetime speeches of Republican presidents just as they cover the primetime speeches of Democrat presidents? Revoking their licenses would be a start. According to the Communications Act of 1934, the Federal Communications Commission isn’t just responsible for issuing broadcast licenses; it’s also responsible for ensuring that those licensees serve the “public convenience, interest, or necessity.”

By refusing to air President Trump’s brief speech, the networks failed on all three of those fronts — especially the middle one. A primetime speech by a sitting president is in and of itself a newsworthy event, regardless of any political implications it might have. I mean, since when is safeguarding our elections not a matter of crucial importance to the health of a republic? Beyond that, a free people should be able to hear their president speak directly and make their own judgments rather than having his words selectively edited or censored altogether by the networks.

Besides, it’s not like Trump abuses the privilege of primetime addresses. It’s not like he trots out every couple of months to swat softballs during a primetime presser, or to talk about how he saved us from a Great Depression, or about how he’s fixing our broken economy, or about how he’s going to fix our broken healthcare system, or about what a great a job he’s been doing during his first 100 days in office — all of which Barack Obama did during his Slobbering Love Affair with the mainstream media.

And what about FDR’s famous Fireside Chats? He did dozens of them during his presidency, and they were eagerly broadcast by the major radio networks of the day — indeed, by the same CBS that cut in late and cut out early on Thursday, and by the same NBC that censored Trump’s speech entirely. And these primetime chats one-way speeches were inarguably political, often expressly used to generate public support for his massive New Deal agenda and other major policies. This was propaganda, pure and simple.

To his “credit,” CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil said, “There is an argument that it’s irresponsible to air the president’s speech tonight. But this speech will be made. It will be news. And it’s our job to cover the news.”

Dokoupil was wrong, right, right, and right — especially those last two points. Regardless of the politics involved, when the most powerful man in the world speaks, it’s news. And it’s the news networks’ job to cover the news, not censor it.

Thoughtful and intelligent folks can debate how much steak there was in Trump’s speech amid all the sizzle — how much merit there is, for example, to the Communist Chinese scheme to mass-produce fake drivers’ licenses and create fake mail-in ballots in 2020. But this much can’t be debated: It was news, and it should’ve been covered by the networks.

If it weren’t for the legacy media’s grotesque double standard when it comes to giving airtime to our presidents, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.