President Donald Trump raised the stakes in his attack on the media on Wednesday, not only decrying a NBC News report about his nuclear ambitions as “pure fiction” but threatening to “challenge their license.”
That’s an apparent reference to the Federal Communications Commission license that allows broadcasters like NBC to use public airwaves to transmit their programming; the government has no control over programming transmitted via cable.
Trump denounced as “fake” an exclusive report on NBC News on Wednesday that Trump had openly asked about the possibility of increasing the U.S. nuclear stockpile by tenfold in a meeting this past summer. “Pure fiction, made up to demean,” 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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2017
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2017
The remarks surprised those present at the meeting, NBC News reported, and came just around the same time that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson may have called Trump a “moron” — an allegation that the State Department later disputed.
In a bit of déjà vu, that “moron” story was also broken exclusively by NBC News earlier this month, leading to a series of nasty tweets from Trump, dismissing the network as “fake news,” and included the same comparison to CNN.
NBC news is #FakeNews and more dishonest than even CNN. They are a disgrace to good reporting. No wonder their news ratings are way down!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017
Wow, so many Fake News stories today. No matter what I do or say, they will not write or speak truth. The Fake News Media is out of control!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2017
Trump’s fingers got a workout this morning, with a Twitterstorm that touted the stock market’s growth under his presidency and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s stance on player protests during the national anthem.