From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Ladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield. On Wednesday morning, NBC reported that in July, President Trump had expressed a desire for a nearly 10-fold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

According to NBC's unnamed sources, the president had seen a chart showing the country's nuclear stockpile was at its peak in the late 1960s, in the heart of the Cold War, and he wanted to rebuild it.

Some of his highest-ranking national security leaders were taken aback, so much so that after the meeting, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly called

Trump, a moron. In response, Trump took to Twitter to express his outrage, not at his Secretary

of State's insubordination, but at the media outlet that reported it. 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, he tweeted. Then in the Oval

office, he repeated his call. It's frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever

they want to write, and people should look into it. Dave Snyder is executive director of the First Amendment Coalition.

He says it's highly unlikely that the president can directly carry out the tweeted threats.

The entities that are licensed are individual stations.

So it's not as if Trump could wave a magic wand and cause NBC news to stop

broadcasting. The FCC is the entity that determines licensing, and it is an independent agency.

The head of the FCC is appointed by Trump, but the FCC does not do the president's bidding.

These aren't entirely uncharted waters. Nixon did try to use the FCC license as a weapon

against the press. Nixon encouraged supporters of his to bring challenges against a couple of TV stations that were

owned by Newsweek in the Washington Post at that time. Those challenges were unsuccessful,

but they highlight a route by which Trump's tweet could actually have some substantive real effect.

David, going to give you a little peek behind the O-TM curtain.

I saw these tweets and went nuts on the grounds of despotism,

unconstitutionality, on Americanness, and so forth.

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