Trump Sparks Outrage After Suggesting NBC Be Shut Down For 'Fake News'

ola olugbemi | October 11, 2017
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On Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump rebuked NBC News for a story claiming the president asked for a tenfold increase in nuclear arsenals, going as far as to suggest the network be shut down for promoting "fake news."

Trump denied the allegations, saying they were “made up to demean,” before suggesting the network lose their license.

The article in question cited anonymous sources for the claims, referencing “three officials who were in the room,” but later quoted a White House spokesperson who allegedly said that the nuclear arsenal was not a primary topic of the briefing.

NBC News also alleged that Trump’s plan to increase the nuclear arsenal prompted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to call the president a “moron.”

Secretary Tillerson has since denied those rumors.

The Hill reported that some members of the media saw the president’s call to challenge NBC’s license as attack on First Amendment free press rights.

However, a 2008 FCC document explicitly states that the agency “generally will not intervene in such cases because it would be inconsistent with the First Amendment to replace the journalistic judgment of licensees with our own.”

(Cover Photo: Gage Skidmore)

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