President Donald Trump’s “fake news” complaints have been a staple of his political rhetoric. | Carolyn Kaster/AP Trump pushes for Senate intel panel probe of 'Fake News Networks' in U.S.

President Donald Trump urged Congress Thursday morning to launch an investigation of the news media, wondering online “why so much of our news is just made up.”

“Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!” the president wrote on Twitter Thursday morning. He did not single out a specific story or media outlet that he believed to be guilty of inaccurate reporting.


Trump’s “fake news” complaints have been a staple of his political rhetoric, a label he often applied to stories that feature negative reporting about him or his presidency. Most recently, Trump has railed against reports that have characterized his administration’s hurricane recovery efforts in Puerto Rico as inadequate, as well as against an NBC News report that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the president a “moron” over the summer and nearly resigned.

Another frequent “fake news” target for Trump has been the multiple ongoing investigations into Russian interference in last year’s presidential election, one of which is being conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The president often refers to those investigations collectively as a “hoax” or a “witch hunt.”

Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said at a press conference Wednesday that they remain in the investigatory phase of their probe, having already conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with more scheduled for this month. The question of whether or not either Trump's or Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign colluded with the Russian government remains open, they said, adding that the Kremlin's election meddling efforts are ongoing around the world.