ABC Suggests Trump Backers ‘Supportive of Dictatorship in This Country’

Nicholas Fondacaro | February 19, 2017
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The liberal media took Senator John McCain’s warning of a dictator Donald Trump during Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC and ran with it as the biggest story of the day, seeming to use it as a vindication of their smears since day one. “Is that over the top? Or is there a concern,” ABC’s Jon Karl inquired to Senator Rand Paul on This Week. While on CBS’s Face the Nation, moderator John Dickerson worried that Trump supporters would take it upon themselves and violently “act” against the “enemy” press.

Karl’s statement was actually more pointed and seemed to suggest Trump’s supporters actually supported a Trump dictatorship. “What would you make of McCain's statement that we're creeping towards a situation where people are potentially supportive of dictatorship in this country? Is that over the top? Or is there a concern,” he asked the Senator from Kentucky.

First off, the question posed by Karl was factually wrong because McCain never suggested that there were people who supported a “creeping” “dictatorship” under President Trump. McCain’s statement was only directed at Trump himself. And secondly, his question obviously targeted Trump’s millions of supporters around the country because it clearly suggests there was a base of support for such an idea.

Paul wrote off McCain’s dictator comment as stemming from the deep divide Trump and he had over how to conduct foreign policy. He even took a few jabs at his colleague for being hungry for war around the globe, stating, “John McCain’s complaint is we’re either not at war somewhere, or if we're at war, we leave too soon.”

But Karl kept pressing, asking, “But just to clarify, what McCain said specifically is dictators get started by limiting freedom of the press. I imagine you agree with that.” Paul dismissed Karl’s repeated attempt to frame the president as a dictator. “I see President Trump expressing his opinion rather forceful in his own, you know, his own distinct way,” he explained, “But I see no evidence that anybody is putting forward any kind of legislation to limit the press.”

Not wanting to be outdone, Karl weaseled in one last hit on Trump before shifting the topic to the firing of Mike Flynn. “He certainly talked about changing the libel laws during the campaign,” he chided.

Later on in the program, Karl again pressed on the assertion of a dictator Trump but this time to a congressman willing to play ball. “Well, as you know, Senator McCain said that-- He warned there's this flirting with authoritarianism in the United States,” he told Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff (who was in Europe with McCain). And Karl seemed to admit that Schiff was going to give him the answer he was looking for. “I gather you don't think that is hyperbolic. You think there is a risk of that here in the United States,” he asked. The Congressman responded by smearing the president:

I do think there is a risk of that. I think John McCain is exactly right. And I think what we're confronting now is a new war of ideas. It's not communism versus capitalism, but it is authoritarianism versus democracy and representative government. And that is a threat that here in Europe they feel acutely… And in the United States, the admiration for Putin, the admiration for the architect of that has many subscribers. In part, the president admires that. So there is a risk. John McCain is exactly right…

Quite an assessment, Congressman Schiff, thank you for joining us,” declared Karl, sounding content.

During an interview with Reince Priebus on CBS’s Face the Nation, moderator John Dickerson tried to corner the president’s Chief of Staff by suggesting that Trump’s supporters would turn violent for their president. “As a spokesman for White House here with us today, what would you say to anybody who might take license with the idea when the president says the press is the enemy and act on that declaration by the president,” he wondered.

“Well, I don't know what you mean by ‘act on.’ I mean, certainly we would never condone violence but I do think we condone critical thought,” Priebus shot back. He argued that America is putting that critical thought into the outlandish stories they’re hearing from the press.

Such outlandish stories include those cited in this blog. These assertions by the liberal networks only serve to discredit the support Trump has from millions of Americans. And it ultimately harms themselves because it is helping to prove Trump correct. 

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