The View: Contempt for Free Press Makes Trump Look Like a Dictator

The hosts of The View argued Tuesday that recent comments and events from Trump’s campaign showed the candidate demonstrated antipathy for one of democracy’s most essential bastions — namely the free press.

Referring to Trump’s comments about how he would like to loosen libel laws in order to make it easier to sue media outlets that write unfavorable things, co-host Whoopi Goldberg accused Trump of exhibiting the traits of a dictator. “That’s what they’re doing in the countries we’re fighting,” she said.

The roundtable went on to recall recent episodes from Trump rallies, in which protesters were ejected, and another incident in which a press photographer was choked and body-slammed by a Secret Service member.

“This is what beginning of dictatorship looks like,” Goldberg said.

Co-host Sara Haines cautioned that the danger of an “anti-establishment” candidate was that one could forget “the beauty of what democracy was born from.”

She added that Trump was “so quick to throw out reporters” and attack newspapers and news networks when he should have been embracing the press because, ideally, a well-informed public would choose the best candidate. “This should be a system where you’re saying, ‘I’m so good that I’ll thrive within it — not bust it down,'” she said.

Videos via ABC.

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