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Trump vs. NBC
So we’re just going to jump into it. Yesterday morning, the President Tweeted the following: “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!”
That comment was in response to an NBC news report about a July 20 meeting where the President said he wanted a 10-fold increase in the US nuclear arsenal, and everyone had to patiently explain the costs, the impracticality, and the international agreements that prevented such a thing. It was also after that meeting that Rex Tillerson allegedly called the President a “moron.” (Not only does the President dispute that report, but several other people, including Gen. Mattis, say the report is inaccurate.)
Okay, first things first, the President’s Tweets are (according to the White House) official statements by the President of the United States. Just to be clear: the President of the United States publicly threatened the broadcast license of a critical media outlet in an official statement.
Trump continued later, saying in a meeting with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, “It’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write and people should want to look into it.”
There are a few things wrong with this. As Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic member of the FCC, observed on Twitter, this is “not how it works.” She added a link to the FCC regulation guide that says, “The Constitution’s protection of free speech includes that of programming that may be objectionable to many viewer[s] or listeners. Thus, the FCC cannot prevent the broadcast of any particular point of view.” But also the FCC licenses local stations. So it’s not like NBC, the network, has an overarching license to pull.
So yeah, that happened. The reaction went far beyond Rosenworcel with criticism coming from both the left and right on First Amendment grounds. Either this will dominate the news for a while or it will blow over when something else comes along.
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Published in General
What about the IRS auditing the Tea Party? No one gave them the order, but they naturally came to the conclusion that such a thing was in the President’s best interests. I don’t expect the deep state to start checking FCC licenses because they’ve developed a sudden love for the Donald but the precedent exists.
I should think the burrito itself was the more credible threat to your health. Hyperbole is inevitable in language. Super inevitable even. But circumstances matter. If your roommate was cleaning his shotgun at the time he made the threat I’d imagine you’d pause for an instant to consider if he was serious. The chief executive as the capability of yanking an FCC license.
Jumping back to Mr. JcTPatriot’s prediction, if the NBC executives start cracking down on the nonsense (and I hope that happens), then you’ve got to figure they, at least, are taking the threat seriously. To the extent that this tweet has any effect at all it’s got to be because someone treats the threat as credible.
To the extent that this is the same thing, I think I covered that in the public accommodation scenario I gave. To the extent that your example is materially different (which I believe it is):
1) that audit moved into actual action;
2) while it’s fair to entertain speculation about explicit orders or motivations I don’t think we can say that “they” came to a conclusion or what that conclusion was;
3) either there is justification for a license challenge or there is not, either there is justification for an IRS audit or there is not – the IRS audit would only be a problem if it were just ginned up or falsified or if the standard used to decide when to initiate an audit were different for different groups.
Agreed. When someone very publicly tells a huge lie about you, especially one that is designed to make you sound unhinged, you have every right to go off on them, and there is nothing “thin-skinned” about it. Yes, if they said something about his hair that was a lie, I might agree. But a fat lie about our nuclear arsenal? You need to shut that nonsense down, in any way possible. How could anyone disagree with that?
Democrats 2008–2016: “Fox News isn’t news, and there should be limits on the first amendment!”
Democrats in 2017: “Gasp! Trump wants to impose limits on the media’s first amendment rights!”
Right on! And also,
“Obama is right, Fox news isn’t really a ‘news channel’ and Democrats don’t have to go to their debates!”
“OMG how dare Trump say CNN is Fake News! I’m triggered!”
Nope, not tired of winning, OR of shining the spotlight on Leftist hypocrites.