Arizona lawmaker Jeff Flake compared Donald Trump to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on Wednesday, delivering a blistering attack on the president to a nearly empty U.S. Senate chamber.
Flake may have hoped for a big bump in name recognition following his sharply critical speech, however, the post news coverage has thus far proved “slight” – at best.
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The Republican has become one of Trump’s favorite targets, earning a presidential nickname – ‘Jeff Flakey’ – since his impending retirement has freed him to openly castigate the White House on several fronts.
‘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,’ Flake said, citing a Trump tweet in which he branded five news outlets ‘the enemy of the American people.’
Flake said that ‘so fraught with malice was the phrase “enemy of the people” that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade 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.’