With the partial government shutdown now 18 days old, President Donald Trump will give his first prime-time Oval Office address at 9:00 p.m. EST tonight on what he calls “the Humanitarian and National Security crisis on our Southern Border.” Indeed, given that he has floated declaring a national emergency so as to facilitate construction of a border barrier without further congressional approval, his brief address could yield big news. Trump will also travel to the border on Thursday to meet with men and women on the front lines of securing that border.

Amidst the debate, remember a key fact: Democrats once supported securing our southern border with a wall but have totally reversed course. For the entirely cynical political calculus of reaping votes from certain constituents, they now vehemently oppose authorizing a dime for its construction.

In another cynical calculation, mainstream media broadcast networks reportedly hotly debated whether to air Trump’s address before eventually granting the White House request for eight minutes of airtime.

CNN’s Brian Stelter relayed a text he says he received from a TV executive: “[Trump] calls us fake news all the time, but needs access to airwaves… If we give him the time, he’ll deliver a fact-free screed without rebuttal. And if we don’t give him the time, he’ll call every network partisan. So we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

Such handwringing is amusingly phony. News networks fill up airtime 24/7 with Democrats, lobbyists, and partisan pundits venting outrage at the president for every policy or social-media post. They’re earning big bucks on one-sided bashing of Trump’s celebrity, yet they balk at giving him eight minutes of airtime to make his case for a significant national policy during a government shutdown triggered by a fight over that policy.

As we argued in 2016, the media was rooting for Trump to win the GOP nomination, giving him (and even his empty podium) what ended up being $5 billion in free (and vastly disproportionate) coverage because they thought him most likely to lose to Hillary Clinton. “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” said then-CBS Chairman Les Moonves.

The plan backfired, but media moguls are still heavily invested in their own love-hate relationship with Trump; they hate him even though he’s great for ratings. Ultimately, the almighty dollar led them to open the airwaves tonight. Just expect it to be followed by countless hours of rebuttals — and that doesn’t even include Democrats’ hilarious demand for “equal airtime” to combat his “malice and misinformation.” After all, if anyone knows malice and misinformation, it’s Democrats.