Trump Threatens to Revoke NBC’s Broadcast License
Courtesy of Hadil Djadi
On October 11th, Trump reached new heights in attacking the media by threatening to revoke the broadcast licenses given to local stations, tweeting that: “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!”.
The move follows NBC reporting that Trump wanted to increase the American nuclear arsenal by ten times and NBC reporting that Rex Tillerson was on the brink of resignation. Trump swiftly denied both reports, tweeting that: “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!” and that: “Rex Tillerson never threatened to resign. This is Fake News put out by @NBCNews. Low news and reporting standards. No verification from me.”
The tweet follows Trump’s long record of harshly criticizing various news outlets as “fake news” in tweets and public statements, primarily CNN. However, Trump’s threat against NBC follows NBC’s negative coverage of Trump in recent weeks and Trump’s resultant criticism of NBC on Twitter and elsewhere.
The move was strongly criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union, which stated that the threat (and Trump’s other threats to the press) “[amounts to] an assault on the cornerstone of American democracy: the First Amendment.” The move was, however, praised by former conservative political commentator Bill O’Reilly, who stated that: “ A corrupt press damages the Republic” following Trump’s threatened revocation of NBC’s broadcast license, referring to NBC and other media outlets that have been criticized by Donald Trump. However, despite Trump’s harsh words, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai refused to pursue such a revocation of NBC’s broadcast licenses, stating that “Under the law, the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.”
NBC Bay Area did not respond to requests for comment.
