WASHINGTON, D.C.: Donald Trump unveiled the winners of his much-touted “Fake News Awards” late Wednesday, hours after a maverick senator from the president’s own Republican party accused him of employing Stalinist language to “slur” and undermine the free press. Arizona lawmaker Jeff Flake leveled the broadside in an address from the Senate floor earlier in the day, delivering a one-two punch after veteran Republican John McCain penned an op-ed assailing Trump’s spoof awards. The brash Republican president announced his top-ten list—which included his regular targets CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post—using his preferred medium of Twitter, linking to a list published on the Republican Party’s website that crashed minutes after his big reveal. Of the “awards” Flake had said “it beggars belief that an American president would engage in such a spectacle yet here we are,”—and urged his fellow lawmakers to take a stand in support of the press. “This feedback loop is disgraceful, Mr President,” Flake said.

Source: Manila Times January 18, 2018 05:48 UTC