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“More Treacherous Than Nixon”: Sunday Shows Hammer Trump For Unhinged Attack On Media

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“Trump’s attacks on the American press as enemies of the American people are more treacherous than Richard Nixon’s attacks on the press.”

Prominent journalists are eloquently responding to President Donald Trump’s unhinged attack on the media Friday, in which he declared five leading mainstream outlets “the enemy of the American people.”

From ABC News’ Jonathan Karl (video above): 

“I’ve reported in countries where leaders not only complain about a critical press, but also try to shut it down, throwing reporters in prison or worse. I’ve seen my colleagues risk their lives and, with increasing frequency, lose their lives in their pursuit of the truth. We are not about to stop doing our jobs because yet another president is unhappy with what he reads or hears or sees on TV news. There is a reason the founders put freedom of the press in the very first amendment to the Constitution.

“As long as American democracy remains healthy, there will be reporters willing to pursue the truth, even if that means incurring the wrath of the most powerful person in the world. A free press isn’t the enemy of America; it’s a big part of why makes America great.”

From Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace’s exchange with Reince Priebus: 

“Reince, here is the problem, I don’t have a problem with you complaining about an individual story. We sometimes get it wrong, you guys sometimes get it wrong. I don’t have any problem with you complaining about bias. But you went a lot further than that, or the president went a lot further. He said that the fake media, not certain stories, that the fake media are an enemy to the country. We don’t have a state-run media in this country, that’s what they have in dictatorships. … 

“You don’t get to tell us what to do, Reince. You don’t get to tell us what to do any more than Barack Obama did. Barack Obama whined about FOX News all the time but I gotta say he never said we were an enemy of the people. … 

“He [Obama] took the shots and we didn’t like them. And frankly we don’t like this either. But he never went as far as President Trump has, and that’s what’s concerning because it seems like he crosses a line when he says that we’re an enemy of the people. That’s concerning.”

From Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein: 

“Trump’s attacks on the American press as enemies of the American people are more treacherous than Richard Nixon’s attacks on the press. Nixon’s attacks on the press were largely in private. There’s a history of what enemy of the people, that phrase means, as used by dictators and authoritarians, including Stalin, including Hitler. And I’m not about to stay anything comparing Hitler and Trump, but it’s a demagogue’s statement. And we live in a time now where there is no civic consensus in this country, like there was at the time of Watergate, about acceptable presidential conduct. There was a consensus that Nixon had to leave office because he had breached that acceptable conduct. … So Trump is out there on his own leading a demagogic attack on the institutions of free democracy, including the press.” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=EjFK2TPR-98

And from CNN’s Brian Stelter: 

“Poison. That’s what it is. It’s a verbal form of poison meant to affect your view of the media world, meant to harm news organizations. Notice what Trump was doing with this tweet — this now famous tweet from Friday, you saw it. It says, ‘the fake news media, failing New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people.’ He was singling out specific news outlets as enemies, including this one. He wasn’t talking about the entire press. He was talking about those five. And he wasn’t saying they are his enemy but your enemy, maybe trying to drive another wedge between the sources he likes and the sources he dislikes. Maybe he was also just trying to distract us.” 

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‘Don’t Feel Sorry for Him’: Trump Rips ‘Vicious’ Biden

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May 30, 2025

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During a wide-ranging Oval Office question-and-answer session on Friday, President Donald Trump was asked about former President Joe Biden, who is now battling an aggressive form of cancer. Trump told reporters he does not feel sorry for his predecessor.

“He’s been a sort of a moderate person over his lifetime,” President Trump said, “not a smart person, but a somewhat vicious person, I will say.”

“If you feel sorry for him, don’t feel so sorry ’cause he’s vicious, what he did with his political, all of the people that he hurt, he hurt a lot of people by and so I really don’t feel sorry for him.”

READ MORE: ‘Afraid, Corrupt, or Don’t Care?’: Ernst Slammed for Trump Support at Fiery Town Hall

Earlier this month aboard Air Force One, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity, “Biden is a vicious person. Biden’s a stupid person. He’s a low IQ person, but he’s vicious and that’s a bad combination,” according to a transcript from Roll Call.

President Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election by over seven million votes. Biden won 51.3% of the vote, Trump received only 46.8%. Trump has baselessly maintained the election was “rigged.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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‘Afraid, Corrupt, or Don’t Care?’: Ernst Slammed for Trump Support at Fiery Town Hall

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May 30, 2025

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U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, already under fire for shrugging off possible deaths from Medicaid cuts by telling constituents at a fiery and contentious town hall that “we are all going to die,” was strongly admonished over her support of President Donald Trump by another attendee, a former high school history and political science teacher.

The man, identified by the Des Moines Register as Harrison Cass Jr., a former Navy officer and retired superintendent, chastised Ernst and her fellow senators during the town hall, saying of the Trump administration, “this has been like a Nazi Blitzkrieg, and you folks have sat and done nothing.”

“Are you afraid of Trump?” he asked the Senator. “Are you corrupt like Trump? Or are you just at the point you don’t care anymore?”

READ MORE: ‘No!’: GOP Rep. Repeatedly Booed and Shouted Down at Raucous Iowa Town Hall

Cass began his remarks by pointing to the “destruction of the checks and balances that the president has already put in place.”

“He’s fired Inspector Generals. He’s fired the leaders—any leader of the federal government that disagrees with him on any political notion. He has fired, and he’s even pursuing lawsuits against those who lawfully acted and challenged him in the past, when he was trying to overthrow the government.”

“Now, he has taken over the government, and he’s been very clear about it,” Cass continued. “He’s made it into a dictatorship.”

He also lamented that “the worst thing is the Senate, and the House of Representatives have been rendered useless! And you folks have let it happen. You’ve sat back and done nothing.”

Cass also blasted Ernst for her apparent about-face on Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense whose confirmation had been in question.

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“Now, I know, I know that you were going to go against Pete Hegseth, who was an incompetent fool, running the Department of Defense. Then you got scared. So my question is this: Are you afraid of Trump? Are you corrupt like Trump, or are you just at the point you don’t care anymore? And that’s why you don’t do anything?”

Cass’s remarks received loud cheers and applause.

Senator Ernst thanked Cass for his service, then responded, “Obviously, I don’t agree, because I don’t think our country is being destroyed.”

Her comment was met with loud boos.

She then went on to explain to the former history teacher why she believes the federal government was established.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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‘Food Fight’: Trump’s Anger Defies Magna Carta and Constitution, Law Professor Says

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2 days ago

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May 30, 2025

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President Donald Trump is facing sharp criticism over his sweeping, multi-front attack on the U.S. Court of International Trade, an influential conservative legal activist who shaped his first-term judicial picks, and the Federalist Society — with one prominent law professor calling it a clash between “MAGA men” and conservatives.

“MAGA men and conservatives aren’t the same. The food fight on the right is now in the open,” wrote Professor Richard Painter, the former Bush 43 chief White House ethics lawyer who is now a political independent.

President Trump had attacked the three-judge panel on the International Trade Court, which blocked almost all of his “Liberation Day” tariffs, declaring that presidents cannot arbitrarily declare emergencies. That ruling, currently on hold, was decided by judges appointed by Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and Trump himself.

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“Where do these initial three Judges come from?” Trump asked. “How is it possible for them to have potentially done such damage to the United States of America? Is it purely a hatred of ‘TRUMP?’ What other reason could it be?”

“I was new to Washington,” he continued in his rant, posted Thursday evening, “and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.”

Professor Painter observed that if President Trump “is angry that he can’t impose tariffs (i.e. taxes) without consent of the legislature, instead of blaming Leonard Leo, he should blame the drafters of the Constitution (1789), or for that matter the drafters of Magna Carta (1215), which says essentially the same thing.”

Painter also explained that this “dispute is over whether a ‘conservative’ judge should allow the President to impose tariffs, a form of taxation, without consent from Congress. Conservatives, and others who understand the Constitution, know that to impose taxes the President needs consent from Congress.”

READ MORE: ‘No!’: GOP Rep. Repeatedly Booed and Shouted Down at Raucous Iowa Town Hall

 

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