He called for a Senate investigation into news outlets for publishing unflattering stories about him is an attack on freedom of the press.
He has attacked reporters personally and en masse; he has incited crowds against them; he has accused reporters (with no evidence, of course) of sedition; and he has said he wants to change libel laws to make it easier to sue news outlets for misstatements.
Trump’s focus on a few outlets, especially NBC News, CNN, and
The New York Times, suggests he is interested not in across-the-board censorship so much as targeted persecution of those organizations that he feels are making his life difficult. The good news is there’s no reason at this moment to believe that the Senate Intelligence Committee would take up Trump’s invitation, but it’s hard to simply dismiss it. Trump has successfully pushed for bogus inquiries in the past, as when he accused President Obama of “wiretapping” him and then demanded his evidence-free allegation be investigated. The Justice Department
concluded there was no evidence to support the claim.