US President Donald Trump has raised the prospect of challenging media licences for NBC News and other news networks after unfavourable reports.<\/p>\n
He took aim at NBC, which made him a star on The Apprentice, after it reported he wanted to boost America’s nuclear arsenal almost tenfold.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump labelled the report “fake news” and “pure fiction”.<\/p>\n
NBC also angered the White House last week when it said the secretary of state had called Mr Trump “a moron”.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning: “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!”<\/p>\n
Welcoming Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Washington later in the day, the US president denied the NBC story.<\/p>\n
“It is frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write, and people should look into it,” he said at the White House.<\/p>\n
When asked if he wanted to increase the country’s arsenal, Mr Trump said he only ever discussed keeping it in “perfect condition”.<\/p>\n
“No, I want to have absolutely perfectly maintained – which we are in the process of doing – nuclear force.<\/p>\n
“But when they said I want 10 times what we have right now, it’s totally unnecessary, believe me.”<\/p>\n
He added: “I want modernisation and I want total rehabilitation. It’s got to be in tip-top shape.”<\/p>\n
Defence Secretary Jim Mattis also disputed NBC’s story.<\/p>\n
“Recent reports that the President called for an increase in the US nuclear arsenal are absolutely false,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“This kind of erroneous reporting is irresponsible.”<\/p>\n
The president’s tweet about US broadcast networks provoked a free-speech uproar.<\/p>\n
Walter Shaub, who led the US Office of Government Ethics under President Barack Obama, said it could lead to “the point when we cease to be a democracy”.<\/p>\n
The Committee to Protect Journalists said the US president’s comment was a poor example for other world leaders.<\/p>\n
According to NBC News, Mr Trump told a top-level meeting at the Pentagon in July that he wanted to dramatically boost the American stockpile of atomic missiles.<\/p>\n
He reportedly made the request after seeing a downward-sloping curve on a briefing slide charting the gradual decrease in US nuclear weapons since the 1960s.<\/p>\n
Attributing its report to three officials in the room, NBC said Mr Trump’s request surprised those present, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.<\/p>\n
The network reported that Mr Trump had also called for additional US troops and military equipment.<\/p>\n
The US has 7,100 nuclear weapons and Russia has 7,300, according to the US non-partisan Arms Control Association.<\/p>\n
Media commentators say the president would struggle to remove broadcasters’ licences if he wished to do so.<\/p>\n
The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates US broadcasters, issues licences not to networks as a whole, but to local stations.<\/p>\n
NBC owns nearly 30 local stations.<\/p>\n
It would be difficult to challenge a licence on the basis that coverage is unfair, say pundits.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump has raised the prospect of challenging media licences for NBC News and other news networks after unfavourable reports. He took aim at NBC, which made him a star on The Apprentice, after it reported he wanted to boost America’s nuclear arsenal almost tenfold. Mr Trump labelled the report “fake news” and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[852,109],"yoast_head":"\n