NBC Under Fire For Stunt Pulled During Trump Interview: ‘Those Words Matter’

Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is calling out NBC News for selectively querying President-elect Donald Trump during a recent interview about his commitment to removing birthright citizenship after taking office.

In a fiery social media post, Lee accused the network of “selectively omitting” parts of the 14th Amendment in order to make it appear like he was ready to ride roughshod over it, which enshrined birthright citizenship into the Constitution. On “Meet the Press” Sunday, Trump called birthright citizenship “ridiculous” and promised to end it “on Day One,” prompting pushback from NBC host Kristen Welker. The 14th Amendment “states all persons in the United States are citizens. Can you get around the 14th Amendment with executive action?” she asked, Fox News reported. Trump replied that the U.S. is “the only country has it” and “we have to end it.”

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Sen. Lee expounded on the amendment’s wording in a post on X. “All persons born … in the United States, *and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,* shall be citizens of the United States,” Lee wrote on X, highlighting the missing words in asterisks. “Those words matter.” He continued his argument in a lengthy thread.

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“Congress has the power to define what it means to be born in the United States ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,'” he wrote. “While current law contains no such restriction, Congress could pass a law defining what it means to be born in the United States ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ excluding prospectively from birthright citizenship individuals born in the U.S. to illegal aliens. Those who suggest Congress is somehow powerless to limit birthright citizenship ignore important constitutional text giving Congress power define who among those ‘born in the United States’ is born subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ It bothers me that @MeetThePress, long revered as America’s leading Sunday political news program, has become so one-sided.”

10. It bothers me that @MeetThePress, long revered as America’s leading Sunday political news program, has become so one-sided.

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) December 8, 2024

“In this instance, @MeetThePress seems to try to render a debatable matter beyond debate by selectively omitting key words from the Constitution, making it appear incorrectly that the Fourteenth Amendment proscribes any and all restrictions on birthright citizenship,” Lee concluded.

NBC, which did not respond to a question by Fox about whether the omission was intentional, otherwise gave President-elect Trump a level of freedom to expound on his plans for a second administration now that the election is behind him. Speaking about his inaugural address, the Republican expressed his hope that his speech would unify a bitterly fractured nation. “It’s going to be a message of unity, and I think success brings unity. And I’ve experienced that. I’ve experienced it in my first term, as I’ve said. We’re going to be talking about unity, and we’re going to be talking about success. Making our country safe. Keeping people that shouldn’t be in our country out, we have to do that. I know it doesn’t sound nice, but we have to do that. Basically, it’s going to be about bringing our country together,” Trump said.

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