US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has raised the possibility of challenging the media licence of NBC News and other news outlets following negative reports.
In his latest round of tweets, Trump took aim at NBC after it reported today that he wanted a tenfold increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal.
Trump labelled NBC News “fake” and “pure fiction”.
Tension has been brewing between NBC and Trump after it last week reported that the Secretary of State had called Trump “a moron”.
“Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold’ increase in our US nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!” Trump wrote on Twitter this afternoon.
This statement was followed by: “With all the fake news coming out of NBC and the networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their licence? Bad for country!”
Trump’s tweets came in response to an exclusive report today by NBC News, which said that the president had sought nearly a tenfold increase in the US nuclear arsenal during a gathering this past summer of the nation’s highest-ranking national security leaders.
NBC reported that according to the officials present, Trump’s advisers – among them the Joint Chief of Staff and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson – were surprised.
The officials said that Trump’s comments during the Pentagon meeting on 20 July were made in response to “a chart shown on the history of the US and Russia’s nuclear capabilities that showed America’s stockpile at its peak in the late 1960s”.
The news outlet also reported that Trump called for additional US troops and military equipment.
The Federal Communications Commission oversees the renewal of licenses for broadcasters, and issues licences not to networks as a whole, but to local stations.
NBC owns almost 30 local stations.
With reporting from Associated Press
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