White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus has revealed that President Trump is considering amending or even abolishing the First Amendment over claims of fake news by the mainstream media.
Let’s look at this closely: yes, some mainstream news is exaggerated to get more viewers and misinformation can slip through, but to even think about changing the First Amendment is a dangerous idea.
Trump has already been mass-tweeting about certain publications that criticize him, including the New York Times and The Washington Post, but this is beyond firing back at media coverage: this is taking away the right to free speech and the right to a free press.
The Trump cabinet is always doing interviews like this, bringing up “fake news” as if it’s a recurring issue. Most news organizations do work hard to put out quality (and factual) stories; it’s the criticism that Trump can’t stand, and why this is even being discussed.
In answering a question about whether Trump would actually go about changing the libel laws, Priebus responded, “I think it’s something that we’ve looked at. How that gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story.”
This is alarming, especially when the entirely of the Trump cabinet have repeated these talking points about “fake news” over and over again. They are trying their hardest to spread a message that the news can no longer be trusted.