Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said Sunday that President Trump should not "weaponize distrust" of the press. He noted that a free press is one of the necessary freedoms included in the First Amendment of the Constitution.

"I mean there's an important distinction to draw between bad stories or crappy coverage, and the right that citizens have to argue about that and complain about that, and trying to weaponize distrust," Sasse told host Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union." "And it's not helpful to call the press 'the enemy of the American people,'" Sasse added, referring to a past comment by the president. Sasse warned such rhetoric could lead to a new form of "tribalism." ADVERTISEMENT The Republican lawmaker said the freedoms provided by the First Amendment — religion, speech, press, assembly and protest — all are intertwined.

"The First Amendment is the beating heart of the American experiment. And you don't get to separate the freedoms that are in there," he told Tapper.

"And you don't have religion without assembly. You don't have speech without press. We all need to celebrate all five of those freedoms, because that's how the 'e pluribus unum' stuff works," Sasse continued.

Trump has taken to Twitter many times over the past week to attack the press and specific news outlets including MSNBC and CNN.