CNN Panel: Trump's America 'Echoes' Soviet Union, Third Reich

Ryan Foley | December 23, 2019
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Sunday's edition of Reliable Sources featured a ten-minute segment painting Republicans and President Trump as liars and trashing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. No member of the panel had more ridiculous analysis than Russian chess champ Garry Kasparov. Host Brian Stelter brought up Kasparov's opinion piece on the CNN website titled "I lived in the post-truth Soviet world and I hear its echoes in Trump's America." Stelter asked Kasparov: "is it this kind of mendacity that is the echo?" Kasparov responded by calling 2019 America "even worse" than the Soviet Union: "in the Soviet Union, we had to struggle to find alternative sources of information. Here, I just push a button. So, swipe your finger on the phone." Kasparov also accused Trump of "separating people" by creating a "red state reality" and a "blue state reality." CNN's resident "conservative" SE Cupp agreed with Kasparov: "I think there are two different realities and two different sets of 'facts.'" She then proceeded to make a veiled comparison of the President to Hitler: "In a book I won't mention that's very famous by a person I won't mention who's very awful...he said propaganda works by appealing to feelings." When Stelter pointed out that it has been 286 days since the last White House press briefing, Kasparov claimed the United States was descending into a dictatorship: "It doesn't happen overnight. People have the wrong impression about dictatorships being built...by the military coups...It happens...in many places...day by day, night by night." Even Stelter pushed back on Kasparov's analysis, reminding him "this is not a dictatorship." Kasparov maintained that the United States is on "a road to perdition," complaining that "2016 elections validated Trump's style" and warning that his re-election will serve as a "validation of his political methods." 

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