Trump’s First ‘Red Alert’ Moment Is Here – And It Should Terrify Every American

A Democratic senator is warning that despite not having taken the oath of office yet, Donald Trump is already causing a “red alert” moment that doesn’t bode well for what will happen once he is formally president for a second term.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) was a guest on Jen Psaki’s show Monday evening, with Psaki noting that Trump was instilling a “culture of fear” by intimidating news organizations with threats of lawsuits if they dare to criticize him.

Citing a $15 million defamation lawsuit settlement paid by ABC News for daring to call Trump a “rapist” (which he is, according to a New York judge), Psaki stated, “If you’re Trump and his team, what does that teach you? It teaches you that tactics like this can work, and that you should keep at them.”

And sure enough, Trump did exactly that, announcing at a Monday press conference that he plans to sue the Des Moines Register over a poll that predicted he would lose to Vice President Kamala Harris by 4 points. The poll came out just weeks before the election. Trump and his attorneys claim the poll was “election interference.”

Psaki continued: “Trump and his team decide they don’t like something, they employ threats and pressure and intimidation to change the thing they don’t like, and it works. And that means they’re incentivized to do it again.”

“It’s important to remember that what this pattern could lead to is a country where journalists don’t feel comfortable speaking truth to power, where elected officials don’t hold people accountable.”

That led Murphy to warn, “I think this is a red alert moment.”

“There are not just two things in this world: democracies and dictatorships,” he said. “There are all sorts of countries in this world that occupy a gray zone.”

If the press stops holding Trump accountable for his actions, Murphy noted, democracy in the United States is doomed.