A new report claims that Donald Trump was allegedly so fed up with the relentless jokes from the Saturday Night Live cast that he tried to enlist The Justice Department to make them stop.
The Daily Beast claims that in March of 2019, Trump became incensed after watching an episode of the legendary sketch comedy show mocking him that he began tweeting about it, threatening to get the FCC involved.
“It’s truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of ‘the other side,’” Trump tweeted, at the time. “Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows. Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this?”
Trump reportedly began internal discussions with some of his political and legal advisers on punishing the show for mocking him.
According to two sources familiar with the matter, Trump asked his advisers and lawyers about what the FCC, the court system, and even some Trump lieutenants at the Department of Justice could do to probe or mitigate SNL, Jimmy Kimmel, and other late-night comedy shows who made fun of him and his presidency.
The sources claim Trump had to be repeatedly advised that the “equal-time” rules to which he appeared to refer wouldn’t even apply in this situation, given that late-night shows and NBC sketch comedy are clearly identified as staged satire, and thus not bound by the same requirements of other forms of broadcast TV and radio.
The advisors had to keep reminding Trump that the Justice Department, in particular, doesn’t handle these types of matters, anyway.
The source also revealed that Trump seemed disappointed to learn that there was no actual legal recourse or anything that the FCC or DOJ could do to punish late-night comedy shows for what he saw as their anti-Trump rhetoric.
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