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# Sen. Jeff Flake Likens President Trump's Attacks on Media to Josef Stalin

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/lZiyLScO.m3u8" -->
## Video: Sen. Jeff Flake Likens President Trump's Attacks on Media to Josef Stalin

[Watch (HLS stream): Sen. Jeff Flake Likens President Trump's Attacks on Media to Josef Stalin](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/lZiyLScO.m3u8) (2:24)

![Sen. Jeff Flake Likens President Trump's Attacks on Media to Josef Stalin](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/lZiyLScO/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2018-01-17. A Republican senator is denouncing President Donald Trump's use of the terms "fake news" and "enemy of the people" to describe the news media and stories he doesn't like._


---

Jul 27, 2023 11:19 PM UTC

---

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['Treason Is Not a Punchline.' Republican Sen. Jeff Flake Blasts Donald Trump's Comments](/video/msdAFJ3s/)

### 'Treason Is Not a Punchline.' Republican Sen. Jeff Flake Blasts Donald Trump's Comments

[President Trump Launches Twitter Attack: 'Fake News Is the Enemy'](/video/Q4rxsSCV/)

### President Trump Launches Twitter Attack: 'Fake News Is the Enemy'

---


## Transcript

2017 was a year which saw the truth, objective, empirical, evidence- based truth, more battered and abused than at any time in the history of our country, at the hands of the most powerful figure in our government. It was a year which saw the White House enshrine alternative facts into the American lexicon. As justification for what used to be simply called old- fashioned falsehoods. The enemy of the people was how the president of the United States called the free press in 2017. 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 Kruchev forbade it's 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. We know well that no matter how powerful, no president will ever have dominion over objective reality. No politician will ever get us, or tell us what the truth is and what it is not. And anyone who presumes to try to attack or manipulate the press for his own purposes should be made to realize, His mistake, and to be held to account, that is our job here.

That is just as Madison, Hamilton, and Jay would have it. Of course, a major difference between the politicians and the free press is that the free press usually corrects itself when it's made a mistake. Politicians don't. 2018 must be the year in which the truth takes a stand against Power that would weaken it. In this effort, the choice is quite simple. And in this effort, the truth needs as many allies as possible. Together, my colleagues, we are powerful. Together we have it within us to turn back these attacks, to right these wrongs, repair this damage. Restore reverence for our institutions and prevent further moral vandalism.

Together, united in this purpose to do our jobs under the Constitution without regard to party or party loyalty, let us resolve to be allies of the truth and not partners in its destruction.

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