McCain defends free press, raises specter of dictatorship from Trump's attacks

 

Senator John McCain is speaking out in opposition to Trump's ongoing feud with the media. On Saturday, McCain sat down with Chuck Todd in an interview with 'Meet the Press,' and addressed Trump's tweet on Friday that accused the media of being the "enemy of the American people.' USA TODAY NETWORK
WASHINGTON — President Trump's long-term rhetorical war on the press is heating up again, thanks to a tweet declaring the media "the enemy of the American people" and concerns that Trump's increasingly acerbic rhetoric is the cutting edge of authoritarianism.
"If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free -- and many times adversarial — press," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaking on NBC's Meet The Press. "And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time — that's how dictators get started."
Citing history, McCain told NBC that "the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press," though he hastened to add: "I'm not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I'm just saying we need to learn the lessons of history."
McCain responded to the echoes of this Trump weekend tweet: "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!"

 

The president amplified his comments at a Saturday political rally in Melbourne, Fla., telling cheering supporters that "dishonest" media members "have their own agenda, and their agenda is not your agenda."
During a tour of Sunday interview shows, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus more or less defended Trump's "enemy" comment, saying too many news stories are based on anonymous sources with anti-Trump agendas, and some are simply wrong.
Priebus challenged stories about investigations into potential contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russian operatives in the wake of Russia's attempt to influence the 2016 election, saying there are no such contacts. He disputed accounts of alleged conflicts between Trump and the intelligence community.
Trump's chief of staff criticized the entire nature of 24/7 television news, saying it emphasizes gossipy trivia -- such as his supposed battles with senior adviser Steve Bannon -- at the expense of real issues like trade policy.  "All this is just total garbage, un-sourced stuff," Priebus told Fox News Sunday.
Trump and his staff believe in the free press, Priebus said on NBC's Meet The Press, and "we don't believe everything is bad. But there are some things that are really bad."
Defense Secretary James Mattis disagreed with Trump's "enemy" comment. While "I’ve had some rather contentious times with the press,” Mattis told reporters over the weekend that the media is "a constituency that we deal with, and I don’t have any issues with the press myself."
Political analysts said there's a difference between criticizing the press and calling it "the enemy" -- a phrase authoritarian governments of the past have indeed used to de-legitimize political opponents and institutions.
"This is something that you hear tin-pot dictators say when they want to control all of the information," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, speaking on ABC's This Week.
Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican political consultant, said Trump is facing a "vigorously hostile press corps" that has low approval ratings of its own, and seems to be "competing to see who can be the first to cause his impeachment."
While Trump "is attacking a weak opponent that his base despises," Mackowiak added that the president needs to reach out to the broader public in order to get legislation passed. "The campaign is over," Mackowiak said. "It's time for governing and governing requires persuasion."
Beating up on the press is as old as the presidency itself, analysts said, from George Washington to Barack Obama. The question is whether they take specific actions designed to curb freedom of the press -- something Trump hasn't done, at least so far.
Nicole Renee Hemmer, assistant professor at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, said "the rhetoric is not yet cause for panic." But she said journalists need to push back and explain that "their work is a vital component of democratic governance and the system of checks and balances, especially given Donald Trump's autocratic tendencies."
Said Hemmer: "Trump has a tendency to blur the distinctions between himself, the government, and the people, more so than any modern president. And his wholesale attacks on the press soften the ground for anti-press action."