Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) defended the free press in an interview aired Sunday and warned that suppressing critical coverage is “how dictators get started.”
“If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press,” McCain said in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
He said that a free press is “vital” to that.
“Without it I’m afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started,” McCain said.
“That’s how dictators get started? With tweets like that?” Chuck Todd asked McCain, referring to a tweet posted by President Donald Trump on Friday.
In the post, Trump railed against the “FAKE NEWS media” as “the enemy of the American People.”
“No, they get started by suppressing a free press,” McCain said Sunday. “The first thing that dictators do is they shut down the press. And I’m not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator, I’m just saying we need to learn the lessons of history.”
‘That’s how dictators get started’: @SenJohnMcCain defends the free press in exclusive @MeetThePress interview pic.twitter.com/yUINj0plIU
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) February 18, 2017
Allow me to get in before the purity police and the grandpa jokes and say he seems to be the only Republican willing to speak up, and I’m glad he’s there. Perhaps he can refurbish his image by being the next Howard Baker?
the most scary thing about saying things like ‘enemy of the people’ is that it invokes images of the Iron Boot coming down on the necks of people…
worse… the Party of the President that saved the Union now appears to be poised to be the party that tears the Union apart and they refused to recognize it…
the snark part… even Gramps yelling at clouds can occasionally say something intelligent… but saying it and acting on it are two different things… Gramps had his chance to act on it during confirmation hearings and blindly went along with the herd of the Party…
I’m glad he is doing this, but his words would carry more weight if he didn’t rubber stamp everything Trump has done so far. And if he hadn’t unleashed Palin on us which lowered the bar for what is acceptable by a politician by about 1000 notches.
And all the angry "Yeahbutwhatabout"s you see in these situations. To put it positively myself, I’ll welcome any good he can do. Compared to McConnell and Ryan he’s Atticus Finch right now.
McCain is no longer driven by ambition to be president. Even he knows that ship has sailed. He is still a Republican and does Republican things that we don’t agree with and even abhor. But if he had switched sides, his words would have absolutely no impact on the right. Let’s take our allies where we can. I personally think he is a patriot putting country above party as best he can. His picking Palin was due to a character flaw (one of many IMHO) not an unpatriotic disregard for the country.