On Wednesday afternoon, as Donald Trump held a contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Pentagon announced that it had accepted a superluxury jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar. It led NBC News’ Peter Alexander to ask the president about the controversial arrangement.
The Republican did not appear pleased.
Trump loses it at Peter Alexander: "What are you talking about? You oughta get out of here … you're a terrible reporter. You don't have what it takes to be a reporter. You're not smart enough … Brian Roberts and the people that run that place they ought to be investigated."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-05-21T16:49:21.814Z
The president went on for quite a while, attacking Alexander’s professionalism and intellect, which was unfortunate but largely forgettable. But as his harangue wrapped up, Trump also told NBC News’ chief White House correspondent, “You ought to go back to your studio at NBC, because [Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts and the people that run that place, they ought to be investigated.”
(My employer, MSNBC, and NBCUniversal currently share Comcast as a corporate parent. Comcast is spinning off MSNBC and other cable properties.)
At face value, it was jarring to see an American president respond to a perfectly legitimate journalistic question by raising the prospect of an investigation. But just as notable was the larger pattern: When targeting his perceived foes, Trump keeps calling for investigations.
Earlier this week, for example, the president said he wanted “a major investigation” into a variety of prominent entertainers — Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey and Bono — as part of an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory related to the 2024 campaign season.
That came on the heels of the Republican insisting that pollsters “should be investigated” for releasing survey data that he considered unreliable.
In previous weeks, Trump has also called for investigations into CBS News, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI director James Comey, the bipartisan House Jan. 6 committee, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, the elected government of South Africa, schools that allow transgender student athletes to compete in sports, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
To be sure, there’s little to suggest that federal officials are following each of Trump’s comments as literal directives — Springsteen, for example, probably won’t face an actual Justice Department probe — but it’s still unsettling to see “there should be an investigation” effectively become a punctuation mark the president uses to end sentences about perceived foes.
