GOP Sen. Jeff Flake Compares Trump To Stalin

Politico reports:

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that President Donald Trump’s declaration that media is “the enemy of the people” is a throwback to Josef Stalin that should have no place in political discourse.

“I’m saying he borrowed that phrase,” Flake told MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt of Trump’s choice of words. “It was popularized by Josef Stalin, used by Mao as well — enemy of the people. It should be noted that Nikita Khrushchev who followed Stalin, forbade its use, saying that was too loaded and that it maligned a whole group or class of people, and it shouldn’t be done.

On Wednesday, Flake will return to the Senate floor to excoriate Trump and White House for their treatment of the press, ahead of Trump’s planned “fake news” awards. The goal of the speech, Flake said, is to nudge the president back to the right form of behavior when it comes to dealing with the press.