In a speech on the Senate floor, Flake, of Arizona, called Trump\u2019s repeated attacks on the media \u201crepulsive\u201d and said Trump \u201chas it precisely backward.\u201d Despotism is the enemy of the people, while a free press is the despot\u2019s enemy and a guardian of democracy, Flake said.<\/p>\n
Flake, a frequent Trump critic who is retiring this year, said that when Trump calls news stories he doesn\u2019t like \u201cfake news,\u201d he \u201cshould be the figure of suspicion, not the press.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House had no immediate comment.<\/p>\n
Flake has said he is not comparing Trump to Stalin, who was responsible for the deaths of millions, but said Trump\u2019s use of a term favored by Stalin, \u201cenemy of the people,\u201d is chilling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis alone should be a source of great shame for us in this body, especially for those of us in the president\u2019s party,\u2019\u201d Flake said.<\/p>\n
Arizona\u2019s other Republican senator, John McCain, also decried Trump\u2019s use of the term \u201cfake news\u201d and said Trump was encouraging autocrats around the world \u201cto silence reporters, undermine political opponents, stave off media scrutiny and mislead citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an opinion column in The Washington Post, McCain said Trump\u2019s attempts to undermine the free press \u201cmake it more difficult to hold repressive governments accountable.\u201d Constant cries of \u201cfake news\u201d undercut legitimate reporting and \u201cstrip activists of one of their most powerful tools of dissent,\u201d McCain wrote.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s first year in office \u201cwas a year which saw the truth \u2014 objective, empirical, evidence-based truth \u2014 more battered and abused than any other in the history of our country, at the hands of the most powerful figure in our government,\u201d Flake said, referring to the president.<\/p>\n
In a direct attack on Trump, Flake said the impulses underlying Trump\u2019s attacks \u201care not benign. They have the effect of eroding trust in our vital institutions and conditioning the public to no longer trust them. The destructive effect of this kind of behavior on our democracy cannot be overstated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s use of the term \u201cfake news\u201d has encouraged authoritarian leaders around the world, who now routinely dismiss criticism as \u201cfake news,\u201d Flake and McCain said, citing comments by Syrian President Bashar Assad, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, among others.<\/p>\n
As a Republican, Flake said he is ashamed of Trump and said politicians in both parties must stand up to his attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo longer can we compound attacks on truth with our silent acquiescence. No longer can we turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to these assaults on our institutions,\u201d Flake said.<\/p>\n
Flake also denounced Trump\u2019s frequent claim that investigations into Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 election are a \u201choax\u201d and said ignoring or denying the truth about Russia\u2019s actions leaves the U.S. vulnerable to future attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that the attacks orchestrated by the Russian government during the election were real and constitute a grave threat to both American sovereignty and to our national security,\u201d Flake said, yet Trump has done little or nothing to investigate the Russians or defend America against future attacks.<\/p>\n
A president, such as Trump, who cannot take criticism, \u201cwho must constantly deflect and distort and distract \u2014 who must find someone else to blame \u2014 is charting a very dangerous path,\u201d Flake said. \u201cAnd a Congress that fails to act as a check on the president adds to the danger.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
a speech on the Senate floor, Flake, of Arizona, called Trump\u2019s repeated attacks on the media \u201crepulsive\u201d and said Trump \u201chas it precisely backward.\u201d Despotism is the enemy of the people, while a free press is the despot\u2019s enemy and a guardian of democracy, Flake said. Flake, a frequent Trump critic who is retiring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":101852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[3586,266,265,315],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-101851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-arizona","tag-election","tag-politics","tag-president-donald-trump"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101851"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=101851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}