On Capitol Hill, Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake warned yesterday that President Trump’s attacks on the media were threatening American democracy. Speaking from the Senate floor Wednesday, Flake blasted Trump’s declaration in 2017 that the U.S. media are the “enemy of the people”.

Sen. Jeff Flake: “Mr. President, it is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Joseph Stalin to describe his enemies. It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase 'enemy of the people' that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of, quote, 'annihilating such individuals,' unquote, who disagreed with the supreme leader. This alone should be the source of great shame for us in this body, especially for those of us in the president’s party, for they are shameful, repulsive statements.”