Congressional Democrats are planning to hold hearings about President Trump’s criticisms of establishment news outlets, according to a new report.
Bloomberg News reports that the House Judiciary Committee, which is currently led by Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), will seek to investigate Trump calling the media “fake news” and “enemies of the people.”
“The committee will study whether such actions either reflect or blur the Constitution’s separation of powers,” the report states.
The president’s repeated declarations that the “fake news” media is the “enemy of the people” has indeed upset many Democrats and media figures.
Possible 2020 hopeful and media darling Beto O’Rourke used the line to attack Trump and Republicans in 2018, accusing him of inciting violence against the media.
“This idea fronted by the president that somehow the press are the enemy of the people, reinforced by him tweeting out images of a reporter being hit by a train, body slammed in a wrestling ring, it is incitement to violence. I don’t know any other way to call it,” O’Rourke said.
Before the 2018 midterms, Trump doubled down on his attacks against the media, saying that it was not him but reporters and pundits who were fostering violence in America.
“A lot of reporters are creating violence by not writing the truth,” he said. “The fake news is creating violence. And you know what? The people that support Trump, and the people the support us, which is a lot of people, most people, those people know when a story is true, and they know when a story is false.”
“I’ll tell you what–if the media would write correctly, and write accurately, and write fairly, you’d have a lot less violence in the country,” he added.