CNN’s Brian Stelter: Is Trump trying to imitate foreign strongmen?

CNN’s senior media correspondent Brian Stelter questioned whether President Trump was trying to imitate authoritarian leaders on Sunday, after he tweeted a video clip of himself beating up a wrestler with a CNN logo superimposed onto his face.

“Is this president trying to impersonate Hugo Chavez? Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? Vladimir Putin? Because this is exactly the kind of language that leaders use when they are trying to undermine the press,” Stelter said on “Reliable Sources,” invoking the former leader of Venezuela and the leaders of Turkey and Russia. 

{mosads}“Of course the American press is much more free then reporters in places like Russia and Turkey and Venezuela. And on this Independence Day weekend that is something we should all be celebrating,” he continued.

Stelter’s comments come as Trump has ramped up his rhetoric toward the press, specifically CNN — often referring to the network as “fake” and “fraudulent.”

I am thinking about changing the name #FakeNews CNN to #FraudNewsCNN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2017

Trump is also under scrutiny for a highly personal Twitter attack on MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski this week, in which he called her “crazy,” “low I.Q.” and claimed she was bleeding from a face-lift at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club last New Years.

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

Brzezinski and her co-host, Joe Scarborough, responded to Trump’s attack in a Washington Post op-ed on Friday, saying they were threatened by top White House officials that the National Enquirer, whose owner is friends with Trump, would run a negative story about them unless they “begged to have the story spiked.”

“He’s trying to build up news outlets that promote him, while trying to tear down outlets that dare to challenge him,” Stelter said.