MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill claimed Thursday on “Deadline” that President Donald Trump has gone further than Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban or Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an authoritarian direction.
McCaskill said, “If I was going to really criticize some of my former colleagues in Congress, it is that I don’t think people have fully grasped people who have been in the system for a long time and who have great faith in our constitutional checks and balances. I don’t think they’ve yet fully grasped how far this guy has gone so quickly. He’s gone much further than Orban ever did, or Erdogan or any of these autocrats across the globe that have tried to shut down the free press, use censorship, tried to change higher education in this country so that you are censoring and ousting anyone who disagrees with the executive’s position. He is really taking this to a place that is absolutely autocratic, absolutely saying forget the checks and balances.”
She added, “I’ve got a Congress that is bending the knee to me. I don’t have to worry about them. I can do whatever I want. Congress is not going to stop me, even though it’s a very small majority. He has in the House particularly, and now he’s going after the other branch so that he has absolutely, he’s got no guardrails in his administration like he did last time. He’s wanting to have a field with no defenders of the Constitution. He wants to blow it up and be in charge. And frankly, way too many people who know better in his party are going along with it quietly. I cannot believe there have not been more United States Senators, especially those on the Judiciary Committee, that have not spoken up about what he’s doing, calling for the impeachment and therefore endangering the federal judiciary.”
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