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The day after his 30-point victory in the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump had reason to be pleased when he headlined an event in New Hampshire. But as The Daily Beast noted, the former president was apparently still bothered by something that happened the night before.
Donald Trump lashed out Tuesday at a pair of cable networks not named Fox News for their decision not to air all of his Iowa caucuses victory speech as it happened, suggesting that what they did was so heinous that they should “have their licenses, or whatever they have, taken away.”
“Last night, it was amazing,” the Republican told supporters. “NBC and CNN refused to air my victory speech — think of it — because they are crooked and dishonest and, frankly, they should have their licenses or whatever they have taken away.”
For now, let’s put aside the question of what the reaction would be if President Joe Biden publicly targeted Fox News’ broadcast license if the network decided not to air the entirety of one of his speeches. Let’s instead consider a more unsettling angle to the rhetoric: the frequency with which the former president talks about this idea.
The push began in earnest during Trump’s term. In fact, just nine months into his presidency, the Republican called on Congress to investigate American media outlets that publish news he didn’t like. A week later, he turned to Twitter to argue, “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!”
It was the first time a sitting American president publicly threatened the broadcast licenses of news organizations that published reports he disapproved of.
After leaving office, this became even more common. Last September, the former president suggested that Comcast — MSNBC’s and NBC News’ parent company — should be investigated for “Country Threatening Treason” because he disapproved of the networks’ coverage of the Trump/Russia scandal. a month later, as my colleague Ja’han Jones noted, the Republican also publicly questioned CBS News’ right to access public airwaves after it ran an interview with Biden that Trump didn’t like.
A month after that, Trump wrote a related missive, arguing that he wants the government to “come down hard” on MSNBC (my employer), whose reporting he described as “illegal.” He added, in apparent reference to his future plans, “Much more to come, watch!”
It was against this backdrop that the Republican frontrunner said he wants to see NBC and CNN lose “their licenses or whatever.”
The use of the word “whatever” offered a big hint that Trump hasn’t exactly thought through the substance of this. It was effectively his way of saying, “I don’t actually know what I’m talking about, but this sounds good, and my followers will probably like it.”
Nevertheless, the fact that the Republican keeps talking about this is disturbing. The former president is already including authoritarian principles in his comeback pitch, and he’s reportedly committed to imposing new political constraints on government agencies. A New York Times report added in July that Trump intends to bring independent agencies — including the Federal Communications Commission, “which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies” — under “direct presidential control.”
Or put another way, simply shrugging off this element of his vision seems unwise.