Trump Floats the Idea of Revoking NBC’s Broadcasting License Because of…Journalism

Hey, happy generic day of the week! You know what happens on generic day of the week, don’t you? That’s right—Wildly Irresponsible Tweets From Our President! Here’s today’s wildly irresponsible tweet:

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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2017

Want context? Sure: It turns out, Trump surprised even the military by requesting a ten-fold expansion of the nuclear arsenal last summer. Yes, ten-fold. NBC News reported the story on Wednesday, and also reported that it was the very thing that inspired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to call his boss a “moron.”

Not surprisingly, Trump’s proposal, which has not been adopted, was an impulsive decision based on a slide show:

Trump’s comments, the officials said, came in response to a briefing slide he was shown that charted the steady reduction of U.S. nuclear weapons since the late 1960s. Trump indicated he wanted a bigger stockpile, not the bottom position on that downward-sloping curve.

After it was over, Tillerson dropped his M-Bomb, and everybody went on their way. But the story feels particularly relevant now, since Trump met with his national security team on Tuesday to discuss potential responses to North Korean aggression. The fact that he seemed eager to expand our nuclear weapon stash less than three months ago feels like a bad sign of how this whole thing might escalate.

It should go without saying that a move like this comes with serious consequences. Per NBC:

Any increase in America’s nuclear arsenal would not only break with decades of U.S. nuclear doctrine but also violate international disarmament treaties signed by every president since Ronald Reagan. Nonproliferation experts warned that such a move could set off a global arms race.

“If he were to increase the numbers, the Russians would match him, and the Chinese” would ramp up their nuclear ambitions, Joe Cirincione, a nuclear expert and an MSNBC contributor, said, referring to the president.

But no sin, in Trump-land, is greater than the sin of reporting stuff that he said. Clearly, he had to debunk it on his favorite debunking medium:

Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a “tenfold” increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2017

What’s amazing is that he didn’t use the phrase “fake news” even once in that tweet, but he quickly made up for it in the tweet you see above, which is tantamount to a threat, and which obviously flies in the face of the first amendment. Whether Trump will actually take steps to pull NBC off the air, or it’s just another spontaneous piece of thought vomit designed to purge his anger and rile up his base…well, that’s anyone’s guess. Wait and see, I suppose?

Tune in tomorrow, which is another generic day of the week, for the latest in Wildly Irresponsible Tweets From Our President.