{"id":47037,"date":"2017-10-12T05:19:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T05:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=47037"},"modified":"2017-10-12T05:19:30","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T05:19:30","slug":"trump-escalates-threats-against-press-calls-news-coverage-frankly-disgusting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/trump-escalates-threats-against-press-calls-news-coverage-frankly-disgusting.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump escalates threats against press, calls news coverage ‘frankly disgusting’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump escalates threats against press, calls news coverage ‘frankly disgusting’<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

President Trump on Wednesday lashed out over a critical news report and escalated his previous attacks on the media by suggesting that news organizations he disagrees with be shut down, alarming free-speech advocates who compared the tactics to intimidation efforts by the Nixon administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

The president\u2019s outbursts, which marred an Oval Office meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, came in reaction to an NBC News report that he had pushed senior aides in July for a major expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The president\u2019s request reportedly prompted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to refer to Trump as a \u201cmoron\u201d after the meeting at the Pentagon.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Twitter, Trump called the report \u201cpure fiction made up to demean\u201d him and questioned whether networks that report \u201cFake News\u201d should be stripped of their broadcasting licenses \u2014 although the Federal Communications Commission licenses individual stations and affiliates, not networks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBad for the country!\u201d Trump wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later, in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Trump denied expressing a desire for more nuclear weapons and again criticized NBC.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd people should look into it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump said he was not calling for limits to be imposed on the media, but he said that \u201cthe press should speak more honestly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I\u2019ve seen tremendously dishonest press,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not even a question of distortion. .\u2009.\u2009. And then they have their sources that don\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But Wednesday night, Trump reiterated his call for possibly challenging networks\u2019 licenses over their news coverage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNetwork news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!\u201d he said in a message on Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s diatribe marked the latest attack against the news media by a president who, according to people close to him, has felt increasingly frustrated over his stalled legislative agenda and political troubles. While Trump has long attacked news coverage of his administration as unfair, his latest missives have morphed into vague threats of government action at his perceived adversaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, angered by the ongoing investigations into his campaign\u2019s ties to Russia, Trump suggested that the Senate Intelligence Committee investigate news outlets over \u201cfake news.\u201d Over the weekend, he expressed disdain at late-night television hosts over their \u201canti-Trump\u201d material and proposed bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, a rule phased out in 1987 that had required broadcasters to provide \u201cequal time\u201d for divergent political views on certain issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

First Amendment advocates roundly condemned the president over his remarks, calling them an assault on the Constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s dangerous and has a chilling effect,\u201d said Michael Copps, who served as chairman of the FCC in 2009 under President Barack Obama. \u201cI worry not just about somebody like NBC, which has a lot of resources to defend themselves, but especially about small, independent broadcasters who express opinions but do not have resources to do battle with the president.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Legal experts called the president\u2019s threat against NBC empty, noting that the FCC does not grant licenses to networks. Furthermore, they said, it is rare for individual stations\u2019 licenses to be stripped over political concerns or for other reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot how it works,\u201d Jessica Rosenworcel, a member of the FCC, wrote on Twitter in response to Trump, linking to an FCC report on how stations are regulated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, when a public official, much less the president, threatens media outlets with any kind of legal proceedings, it is a cause for grave concern as a First Amendment matter,\u201d said Andrew Schwartzman, a media law specialist at the Georgetown University Law Center. \u201cBut as a practical matter there is no possible legal jeopardy for Comcast television licenses.\u201d Comcast, the cable giant, owns NBC.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schwartzman noted the historical precedent, when allies to President Richard M. Nixon challenged individual licenses of television stations owned by The Washington Post Co. in 1973 during The Post\u2019s ongoing investigation into the Watergate scandal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those challenges were baseless and were unsuccessful, Schwartzman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Post was never under serious legal threat,\u201d he said, adding that Trump \u201cis ignorant over details like what the law actually requires or permits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

NBC reported that Trump\u2019s reaction over the nuclear stockpile came after senior advisers showed him information charting its steady decline in numbers since the 1960s during the meeting at the Pentagon in July. Trump then expressed a desire to expand the arsenal by up to 10 times its current size, according to the report.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump is preparing for an 11-day trip next month to five Asian nations, during which he will seek to bolster international support to pressure North Korea to curb its nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile testing. During a speech at the United Nations last month, Trump said the United States was prepared to \u201ctotally destroy\u201d the North if necessary, and he derisively referred to dictator Kim Jong Un as the \u201cRocket Man.\u201d North Korea responded that Trump\u2019s threats amounted to a declaration of war.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tillerson said during a visit to Beijing two weeks ago that the administration was \u201cprobing\u201d for channels of direct communication with Pyongyang to ratchet down tensions. But Trump quickly undercut the nation\u2019s top diplomat, saying on Twitter that it was a waste of time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRecent reports that the President called for an increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal are absolutely false,\u201d Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement. \u201cThis kind of erroneous reporting is irresponsible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Oval Office, Trump said of the nuclear arsenal: \u201cWe won\u2019t need an increase, but I want modernization and I want total rehabilitation. It\u2019s got to be in tiptop shape.\u201d He said a tenfold increase in the stockpile is \u201ctotally unnecessary, believe me. Because I know what we have right now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

NBC did not formally respond to Trump\u2019s attacks on the network. Courtney Kube, a national security reporter for the network, wrote on Twitter: \u201cNBC News didn\u2019t report Trump \u2018called for\u2019 more nucs. On the contrary, we reported Trump said he wanted more but no one took it as an order.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, after Trump suggested the Senate committee investigate news organizations, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the president, calling him \u201can incredible advocate of the First Amendment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Reporters, she said, \u201chave a responsibility to tell the truth, to be accurate,\u201d and she cited a study from Pew Research Center that found 5 percent of news stories about Trump in his first 60 days in office were positive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sanders accused reporters of being consumed by \u201cpetty palace intrigue\u201d \u2014 stories about personnel moves and internal West Wing squabbles \u2014 instead of focusing on improvements in the economy and the administration\u2019s campaign against terrorist groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump, for his part, has been consumed by the negative coverage and has railed against CNN, the New York Times, The Washington Post and other outlets for months. In July, he tweeted a doctored video clip of him in a WWE wrestling match from years ago tackling a figure with a CNN logo superimposed on the head.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Trump has attacked ESPN over criticism of him by an anchor \u2014 suggesting the network apologize to him and blaming her in a tweet Tuesday for contributing to the sports network\u2019s declining ratings and subscription base.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month, when the anchor, Jemele Hill, referred to Trump as a \u201cwhite supremacist,\u201d Sanders called it a \u201cfireable offense.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union\u2019s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said Trump\u2019s attacks risk \u201coutrage fatigue.\u201d But, he added, \u201ca call to challenge the licenses of news organizations for doing their jobs is genuinely shocking. This is the language of an autocrat, not the elected leader of a democracy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/trump-escalates-threats-against-press-calls-news-coverage-frankly-disgusting\/2017\/10\/11\/32996dba-ae9c-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.7c9ab1ce7195<\/span><\/p>\n

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