Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that President Donald Trump’s declaration that media is “the enemy of the people” is a throwback to Josef Stalin that should have no place in political discourse.
“I’m saying he borrowed that phrase,” Flake told MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt of Trump’s choice of words. “It was popularized by Josef Stalin, used by Mao as well — enemy of the people. It should be noted that Nikita Khrushchev who followed Stalin, forbade its use, saying that was too loaded and that it maligned a whole group or class of people, and it shouldn’t be done.
“I don’t think that we should be using a phrase that’s been rejected as too loaded by a Soviet dictator.”
One of the Republican Party’s most vociferous critics of Trump, Flake decided not to run for reelection after his popularity dove in Arizona, in part due to his criticism of the president, which he expanded on his book “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle.” Taking to the Senate floor to announce his decision to retire in October last year, Flake warned his…
