Trump Hits NBC Again, but GOP Senator Has a Question

President Trump isn't relenting in his criticism of NBC. "Sadly, they and others are Fake News, and the public is just beginning to figure it out!" the president tweeted Friday. It was an echo of a tweet Thursday evening in which the president said NBC was "dishonest and disgusting" and "may be worse than even @CNN." A day earlier, Trump suggested NBC and other networks should have licenses revoked for "partisan" coverage. In his new tweets, Trump drew attention to supportive tweets from Bill O'Reilly, who wrote that Trump can't do much about revoking the network's broadcast license but "is doing major damage to the @NBC brand," per Politico.

Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska is lining up squarely against Trump on the issue. "Mr. President: Are you recanting of the Oath you took on Jan. 20 to preserve, protect, and defend the 1st Amendment?" he asked, per HuffPo. The sentiment is a familiar one: Andres Oppenheimer at the Miami Herald writes that "Trump's veiled threat to NBC shouldn't be seen as another trivial remark by a president who suffers from verbal incontinence" but as a "statement that goes against core US values." Still, Trump's threat to challenge NBC's broadcast license would be all but impossible to follow through on, explains the San Diego Union-Tribune, because the FCC licenses local affiliates, not networks. "Not how it works," tweeted the FCC chief of the president's threat. (More President Trump stories.)