CNN’s Chris Cillizza compared President Trump’s rhetoric about the press at his rally on Tuesday to the famous novel 1984 written by George Orwell on Wednesday afternoon.
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“This is a book that probably everyone read at some point in your high school or collegiate life. I want to read you a quote from the book that will ring a little eerily reminiscent of what you just heard from the president. ‘The party told you to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command,'” Cillizza began.
“I’ll add there, Wolf, take it out of the fictional realm of a dystopian novel, I’ll add that in many authoritarian countries around the world led by what we would call authoritarian dictators, there is a lot of state-run, state-controlled media. No free and independent press. Basically you can only believe what the top person tells you to believe,” he continued.
The book itself takes place in 1984, and centers around a dystopian society where people’s thoughts are controlled and regulated by the government.
The segment began with CNN host Wolf Blitzer playing the clip from Trump’s speech where he said, “just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” in reference to “fake news.”