Donald Trump is scheduled to address the nation Wednesday, April 1, about the ongoing Iran war.
The president’s 20-minute speech will be broadcast live across all four major networks — CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox — beginning at 9 p.m. ET, interrupting several popular nighttime TV shows, including the two-hour season finale of The Masked Singer and a two-hour special episode of Survivor.
The Masked Singer, Fox’s anonymous celebrity singing competition, will crown its 14th season winner tonight during a two-hour finale, starting at 8 p.m. ET. It will pause at 9 p.m. ET for the president’s remarks, then resume immediately where it left off, running until 10:20 p.m. ET, before switching to local news.
CBS’s long-running survival reality series, Survivor, will follow the same schedule. Once the Jeff Probst-hosted show ends, the network will air an all-new episode of America’s Culinary Cup. The cooking show, originally slated for 10 p.m. ET, will instead run from 10:20 p.m. to 11:20 p.m. ET, followed by local newscasts.
Other TV shows that will be impacted by Trump’s address are NBC’s Chicago Fire, which will be pushed back to 9:20 p.m. ET, followed by a new hour-long episode of Chicago P.D. at 10:20 p.m. ET and local news thereafter.
Both CBS and NBC will move The Late Show and The Tonight Show, respectively, back to 11:20 p.m. ET.
Meanwhile, ABC has chosen to replace new episodes of The Greatest Average American (9 p.m.) and Shark Tank (10:01 p.m.) with reruns on both coasts. The East Coast broadcast of The Greatest Average American will be preempted by Trump’s speech, with the Shark Tank rerun beginning on time at 10:01 p.m. ET/PT.
This leaves ABC local news and reruns of Jimmy Kimmel Live! to continue in their typical scheduled slots across the country.
On the West Coast, the president’s address will begin at 6 p.m. PT, leaving the evening’s TV schedule unaffected.
Trump is set to address the nation about the country’s war in Iran. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president will be providing “an important update,” but failed to share any other details.
America has been at war with Iran for about a month, after joining Israel in carrying out airstrikes on Tehran and killing supreme leader Ali Khamenei on February 28.
The war has sparked mixed reactions, with some praising the effort to take out the regime and others blasting what they called another “endless” war in the Middle East. Trump recently insisted that he expected the conflict to be over in two to three weeks, saying, “We’ll be leaving very soon.”
