Donald Trump's 'repulsive' attacks on media likened to Josef Stalin by Republican senator

Jeff Flake to accuse President of 'unrelenting daily assault' on press

Donald Trump’s “repulsive” presidential statements on the media will be compared to the propaganda of Russian dictator Josef Stalin, according to a report, in a speech by a Republican senator this week.

Jeff Flake will take to the Senate floor on Wednesday to condemn the 71-year-old’s presidency and his “unrelenting daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press”, according to an excerpt obtained by The Washington Post.

“2017 was a year which saw the truth — objective, empirical, evidence-based truth — more battered and abused than any other time in the history of our country, at the hands of the most powerful figure in our government," Mr Flake is expected to say.

He will continue: “It was the year in which an unrelenting daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press was launched by that same White House, an assault that is as unprecedented as it is unwarranted.”

He goes on to say Mr Trump’s use of the phrase “enemy of the people” to describe the media was also “infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies”.

Mr Flake will note that Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor, banned the use of the term and told the Soviet Communist Party it was used by Stalin for the purpose of “annihilating such individuals” who disagreed with him.

“This alone should be a source of great shame for us in this body, especially for those of us in the President’s party,” he will say. “For they are shameful, repulsive statements.”

Mr Flake, one of the few vocal critics of the President in the Republican party, will also insist a powerful figure who brands the press “fake news” should be “the figure of suspicion, not the press”.

The speech will come just days after Mr Trump accused the Wall Street Journal of “fake news” after it reported the President as saying: “I have a good relationship with Kim Jong-un”.

Mr Trump insisted he said of the North Korean leader: “I’d have a relationship with Kim Jong-un.”

“Fortunately we now record conversations with reporters and they knew exactly what I said and meant,” he added. “They just wanted a story. FAKE NEWS!”

Mr Flake’s criticism comes despite his backing of almost all Mr Trump’s positions in the Senate, including a failed attempt to repeal Obamacare and the successful overhaul of the US tax code, which was criticised as a tax cut for America’s wealthiest.

Excerpt of Jeff Flake’s Wednesday Senate speech in full:

2017 was a year which saw the truth — objective, empirical, evidence-based truth — more battered and abused than any other 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 known simply as good old-fashioned falsehoods. It was the year in which an unrelenting daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press was launched by that same White House, an assault that is as unprecedented as it is unwarranted. “The enemy of the people,” was what 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 Josef Stalin to describe his enemies. It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase “enemy of the people," that even Nikita Khrushchev forbad its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of “annihilating such individuals” who disagreed with the supreme leader.

This alone should be a source of great shame for us in this body, especially for those of us in the president’s party. For they are shameful, repulsive statements. And, of course, the president has it precisely backward – despotism is the enemy of the people. The free press is the despot’s enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy. When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn’t suit him “fake news,” it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press.

I dare say that anyone who has the privilege and awesome responsibility to serve in this chamber knows that these reflexive slurs of “fake news” are dubious, at best. Those of us who travel overseas, especially at war zones and other troubled areas around the globe, encounter members of US based media who risk their lives, and sometimes lose their lives, reporting the truth. To dismiss their work as fake news is an affront to commitment and their sacrifice. Mr President, a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists documents that the number of journalists imprisoned around the world has reached 262, which is a new record. This total includes 21 reporters who are being held on “false news” charges.