Former President Donald Trump spent his Sunday night threatening Comcast and NBC, saying if he gets a second term in the White House he would investigate the independent media outlets for “treason” and make them “pay a big price.”
“Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC … should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason,’” Trump wrote on his favorite bootleg social media platform Truth Social.
“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events,” Trump added. “The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”
Trump going after members of the media is nothing new for the man who thinks he coined the term “fake news,” but campaigning on targeted threats of retribution takes things to a more alarming level.
The leading Republican presidential candidate, of course, recently did a lengthy interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press” and in the process admitted he was behind the decision to describe the 2020 presidential elections as “rigged.”
That admission led many legal experts to suggest that Trump effectively destroyed a defense tactic his legal team could possibly use in the criminal cases he is facing. By saying it was his decision to call the election “rigged,” the former president made it harder to claim that he was simply following his lawyers’ advice.
Trump is currently facing 91 counts across four criminal cases in Washington D.C., New York, Florida and Georgia — two of which are federal. The indictments in Washington and Georgia stem from the former president’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. He’s also been charged for hoarding classified documents in his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate and allegedly falsifying business records while trying to cover up the hush money payments he made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“President Biden swore an oath to uphold our Constitution and protect American Democracy. Freedom of the press is a fundamental Constitutional right,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told TPM in response to Trump’s remarks. “To abuse presidential power and violate the Constitutional rights of reporters would be an outrageous attack on our democracy and the rule of law. Presidents must always defend Americans’ freedoms – never trample on them for selfish, small, and dangerous political purposes.”
