Author Brian Klaas compared President Trump to dictators Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday.
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“Is there a pattern, Brian, of an authoritarian figure looking for ways to take down the different bulwarks against the expression of power, how does this fit into your argument?” asked political writer for the New York Times Nick Confessore.
“Yeah, I mean it’s completely a parallel right? So you have going after intimidating, critical media, and that’s what authoritarian regimes do. Trump has not only talked about libel laws, but he’s also talked about revoking media licenses for critical reporting,” Klass responded.
“He’s called the press a stain on America and an enemy of the people, and people throughout history who have used that last term are Mao and Stalin,” Klaas continued. “I mean it’s not hard to connect the dots here right? Anytime somebody criticizes the president, he wants to litigate or destroy the first amendment when in fact, he is responsible for upholding it, and there’s no real parallel in modern American history of someone who has tried to do this in a systematic way on a near daily basis.” (RELATED: Scarborough Says Wolff’s Claims About Trump In New Book ‘Ring True’)
The president said Wednesday during a press briefing that “we are going to take a strong look at our country’s libel laws,” of which he called the current iterations a “sham and a disgrace.”
A recent and highly criticized book by Michael Wolff titled “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House” made salacious and unfounded claims against the president, many of which have been debunked by the sources who are cited in the work.