Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean claimed Thursday on MSNBC’s “All In” that once in office, President Donald Trump will attack free speech, causing the country to be “done for as we know it.”

Host Ari Melber said, “I am curious what you see here in the political side of this. These are political efforts to change how people act or change coverage or have some impact. ABC, going to make its own decisions but it was widely covered that the case was not an obvious loss by any means and their statement, I am referring to what ABC says that they made a material important factual mistake. They regret the statement that was made about Trump. your thoughts about all of that?”

Dean said, “I think we are in big trouble. Kamala Harris when she was running saying democracy was on the ballot. Now I think people are beginning to understand. This really all started in 2000 when the Supreme Court chose the next president. Now, I think Bush would have been elected any way had they gone through the proper congressional process but the fact is that the Supreme Court in a partisan decision decided not to count a lot of votes in Florida. Today we have a Supreme Court that is bound up in partisanship and we have a Supreme Court where there is corruption. We have a Supreme Court where 33% of the American people actually think it is doing its job.”

He continued, “I think there is little protection. I think a lot of the CEOs, I believe that decision to give Trump $15 million, his library $15 million was made by Bob Iger of Disney who is the CEO of Disney who owns ABC. That is the same as Bezos pulled anti-Trump endorsement of Trump for The Washington Post, same in Los Angeles where the owner of the paper is now censoring everything that goes in the paper so it doesn’t say anything bad about Trump. We are on much thinner ice then most Americans believe in.”

Dean added, “Democracy is worth something and as Winston Churchill says it is the worst form of government except for every other. If this falls, protection of free speech which Trump is absolutely going to attack then I think the country is pretty much done for as we know it.”

Follow Pam Key on X @pamkeyNEN