Donald Trump took to Twitter to complain about his network news coverage. He suggested that TV networks should have their broadcasting licenses challenged over “fake news.”
Whatever happened to ‘free press’?
“With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!” he tweeted.
via NYDN:
Trump’s TV tantrum came after an NBC News report said he asked in a July Pentagon meeting for the U.S. to increase its nuclear arsenal ten fold. After the meeting, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson allegedly called Trump a “f—–g moron,” which NBC first reported last week. Trump and the U.S. State Department denied the insult, though Tillerson himself did not.
In another Wednesday tweet, Trump wrote, “Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold’ increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!”
Trump wanted nearly ten times number of nuclear weapons: report
Trump’s war with the so-called “fake news” media has been an obsession since he started his presidential campaign, but his most recent threats have become much more severe.
In a tweet last week, he suggested Congress should investigate news networks for reporting stories he deemed “fake.”
“Why Isn’t the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!” he wrote.
Trump’s Wednesday threat suggests he wants a federal agency, the Federal Communications Commission, to crack down on networks he doesn’t like.
The FCC regulates broadcast stations, including NBC, since the airwaves are considered public. It has the ability to penalize the stations or revoke licenses for a variety of offenses, including knowingly broadcasting false information.
But there is little chance that Trump’s complaints would warrant such action, since there is no evidence NBC is publishing fake stories.
Hundreds of Trump supporters this year have written to the FCC asking it to revoke the license for CNN, even though the agency does not regulate cable.
We need Mueller to hurry on up with this investigation so we can formally start the process of getting Donald out of the White House. We honestly don’t know how much more of this we can take.
