Senior Republican Senator John McCain has sent a warning aimed directly at US President Donald Trump and his rages against the media – “that’s how dictators get started.” 

McCain is a Trump critic, but went further to distance himself when on a trip to Germany for the Munich Security Conference. He broke with the party line to say the administration is in “disarray”.

Mr Trump has labelled journalists “the enemy of the American people”, branding a long list of mainstream media outlets as “fake news”.

He was back in campaign mode at a rally in Florida on Sunday where he again attacked the press, telling supporters that when the “media lies to people, I will never, ever let them get away with it”.

“Their agenda is not your agenda”, he told the crowd.

Don't believe the main stream (fake news) media.The White House is running VERY WELL. I inherited a MESS and am in the process of fixing it.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2017

Mr Trump’s team has tried half-heartedly to dilute his attacks and attempts to suppress the media, but Mr McCain has gone further in telling NBC’s Meet the Press that if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press.

“I hate the press. I hate you especially,” McCain joked to host Chuck Todd. “But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8Cb1mr1ByU

The Arizona Republican cautioned that he was not accusing Trump of trying to be a dictator. He made the comments during a discussion of the post-World War II world and America’s role in it.

“They get started by suppressing free press,” McCain said of dictators.

“In other words, a consolidation of power when you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press. And I’m not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I’m just saying we need to learn the lessons of history.”

McCain also told the Munich Security Conference on Friday the resignation of the Donald Trump’s security adviser, Michael Flynn, over his contacts with Russia reflected deep problems in Washington.

“I think that the Flynn issue obviously is something that shows that in many respects this administration is in disarray and they’ve got a lot of work to do,” said McCain, even as he praised Trump’s defence secretary, James Mattis.

“The president, I think, makes statements (and) on other occasions contradicts himself. So we’ve learned to watch what the president does as opposed to what he says,” he said.

– with AAP and agencies