I am watching BBC World News which has just carried a clip of an interview with Republican grandee John McCain, who explicitly stated that he does not think that Donald Trump wants to be a dictator and explicitly did not link a tweet of the POTUS to such a goal. McCain is no friend of the Donald but the BBC cannot help itself. So flashing across my screen right now is:
McCain on Trump's tweet "that's how dictators get started"
Oh what irony. The actual transcript is below:
CHUCK TODD:I'm curious of your reaction to a tweet that the president sent Friday night. "The fake news media, failing New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, CNN is not my enemy. It is the enemy of the American people." You believe the press is the enemy? You believe any group of Americans are the enemy of another group of Americans?
JOHN MCCAIN:I was talking about the period as, you know, of the new world order. A fundamental part of that new world order was a free press. I hate the press. I hate you especially. But the fact is I, we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital. If you want to preserve-- I'm very serious now-- If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That's how dictators get started.
CHUCK TODD:That's how dictators get started, with tweets like that?
JOHN MCCAIN:With-- No. They get started by suppressing a free press. In other words, a consolidation of power, when you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press. And I'm not saying that that's, that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I'm just saying we need to learn the lessons of history.
I rest my case: FAKE NEWS @BBC