Famed reporter Carl Bernstein on Friday tore into Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans, accusing the GOP of “[hinging] its future” on “a demagogic, authoritarian president.”
Bernstein was responding to the anti-FBI memo, drafted by staffers for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), which the House Intelligence Committee released Friday—over the objections of Democrats and members of the intelligence community.
“We may well have not seen such dark days for American democracy and its institutions since the days of Joe McCarthy,” Bernstein told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“What we are seeing here is a da demagogic, authoritarian president who is using this red herring to contend that there is a ‘witch hunt’ going on when, in fact, there is a legitimate investigation into what the Russians did, and whether or not the President of the United States and his cohort and aides and families may or may not have been involved in helping the Russians,” Bernstein explained.
Bernstein argued Trump “ought to have enough confidence in our institutions,” to let them investigate Russian collision and “whether or not the Trump Organization, the President of the United States, his family and aides were involved in some way.”
“In the whole Cold War, the Russians were not able to do what [Vladimir] Putin has done through Donald Trump, to destabilize the United States and its democratic institutions.”
“It's stunning,” Bernstein continued. “It’s ruinous. Hopefully, the Republican party, which has gone along with him in lockstep, will get hold of their senses and, remember, it was the Republican party who was always toughest on the Russians and what they were doing. And if they cannot see how Donald Trump has been manipulated and how Donald Trump is using this to avoid legitimate investigation and to poison the are institutions of American democracy, then the Republican party is taking us somewhere where we haven't been before. And they were the heroes of Watergate because they were open to the truth.”
Bernstein went on to blast the “disingenuous partisan document,” challenging the core of the Nunes memo—and the Republicans who’ve hyped it.
“The idea that this is solely based on the dossier—even so, Christopher Steele would help the FBI and the world police organizations break the conspiracy in the soccer leagues of the world through his skill,” Bernstein said. “There was reason to believe that he had good sources. So, this is all a red herring by the President of the United States and his allies in Congress, which is sort of unfathomable, if you think that the Republican party is going to hinge its future to the kind of demagoguery and authoritarianism represented in what we're seeing here.”
“We are at a crossroads in this country,” Bernstein continued. “Watergate established the United States vs. Nixon that no one in this country is above the law, including the president of the United States. Right now, we have the unprecedented situation of one of the major political parties essentially asserting and backing the president in showing and believing that he is above the law.”
Watch below, via CNN:
