McCain on Trump’s attack on media: ‘That’s how dictators get started’

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Sen. John McCain continued his public condemnation of President Donald Trump, slamming the commander-in-chief’s assault of the press as a sign of dictatorship.

“I hate the press. I hate you especially. But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital,” McCain half jokingly said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

“If you want to preserve — I’m very serious now — if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial 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.”

McCain comments come after President Trump took to Twitter to attack the media, or as he described: “fake news.”

“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” Trump tweeted Friday.

McCain said that while he is not suggesting the president is in fact a dictator, it’s important to remember historically how language and the suppressing of the press were used to set the groundwork for the world’s most notorious dictators.

“They get started by suppressing free press, in other words, a consolidation of power — when you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press,” McCain said. “And 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.”