CNN political commentator S.
E. Cupp on Saturday likened the United States under President Donald Trump to the totalitarian regime of North Korea, insisting the country was on a dangerous path toward militarization and personality cult politics.
Her remarks came during a segment of CNNs Table for Five, where she portrayed the U.S. as drifting toward the kind of authoritarianism associated with Pyongyang. According to Western Journal, Cupps commentary grew increasingly agitated as she pressed the comparison, even after former Republican New York City Councilman Joe Borelli cautioned that her rhetoric was extreme.
Cupp argued that the country was embracing a level of state power and public intimidation that should alarm Americans across the political spectrum. We should not want a militarized United States, with our streets militarized, our voting militarized, our airports militarized. I am so concerned about the North Korea coded stuff that is going on right now, Cupp said.
She then cited a series of examples she claimed illustrated a creeping authoritarian aesthetic around the Trump administration. From [Attorney General] Pam Bondi unfurling a banner with Trumps face on it on the DOJ [Department of Justice] building to Trump putting his signature on our currency and his name on the Kennedy Center, to inviting only friendly media outlets who are going to say exactly what you want in Pentagon briefings. I mean, it goes on and on and on.
Cupp insisted her concerns were not rooted in partisanship but in what she described as a fundamental threat to American norms. When did we want to become North Korea? This should be unnerving, disturbing to everyone. This is not partisan. This is scary stuff, she added.
She went on to frame the Trump era as a slow creep toward a police-state environment, blaming supporters of the Make America Great Again movement for rationalizing it. So it can feel like a slow creep, and MAGA will justify it using Trumps lie about the election. But look around. Look around at your country, people. Is this what you want? You want to walk down the street and see, you know, rifles, guys with guns patrolling because for no reason at all, just to intimidate you? Is that what you want? You want to walk around and see the presidents face on the Department of Justice, which is a separate but co-equal branch of government? Its bananas.
Her reference to the Department of Justice as a separate but co-equal branch of government was itself inaccurate, as the DOJ is part of the executive branch under the presidents authority. Cupps tirade was prompted by a question about whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should be stationed at polling locations during the midterm elections, an idea critics on the left have used to stoke fears of voter intimidation.
Borelli, representing a more traditional conservative perspective, eventually challenged her portrayal as detached from reality. Lets just get back down to earth. You know, the North Korea comparison is a little extreme considering, he said, before Cupp cut him off with, No, its not.
The following day, the administrations position on the specific issue of ICE at polling places was clarified on another CNN program. White House border czar Tom Homan appeared on State of the Union and said he had no role in any such planning and had not been asked to deploy immigration officers to voting sites.
Has President Trump asked ICE to start making any sort of plans to go to polling sites during the midterms? host Jake Tapper asked. Ive had no discussions about that with President Trump or [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Homan said.
He emphasized that the matter had not been raised in any official setting. Has not came up in any conversation.
The contrast between Cupps dire warnings and the on-air assurances from Homan underscores a broader pattern in the Trump era, in which media figures on the left frequently escalate their rhetoric to invoke images of dictatorship and foreign despotism. For many conservatives, equating a constitutional republic with North Koreawhile mischaracterizing basic civics about the branches of governmentillustrates how hyperbole has replaced sober analysis in much of the mainstream political commentary.
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