Close video Trump hits new low as war with press moves beyond just talk Rachel Maddow looks at the ways in which Donald Trump is trying to delegitimize, manipulate, and even eliminate the free press in the United States. Rachel Maddow looks at the ways in which Donald Trump is trying to delegitimize, manipulate, and even eliminate the free press in the United States. share tweet email Embed

At his White House press conference last week, Donald Trump acknowledged the progressive activists working to protect their health care benefits, but the president quickly added that these Americans don’t really count.“We’ve begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare,” he said . “Obamacare is a disaster, folks. It’s a disaster. You can say, ‘Oh, Obamacare.’ I mean, they fill up our rallies with people that you wonder how they get there, but they’re not the Republican people that our representatives are representing.”It was a bizarre peek into the thinking of a president who doesn’t fully understand the basics of our democracy. Elected Republican officials, in Trump’s mind, should focus on representing “Republican people.” Others may speak up and petition the government for redress of grievances , but as far as Trump is concerned, their voices are neither important nor relevant.Republicans are elected to represent Republicans, the argument goes, not all of their constituents. It’s a zero-sum game: if your side of the political divide isn’t in a position of power, then you might as well sit down, shut up, and stop asking impertinent questions at town-hall forums in which GOP officials want to hear from “the Republican people” – as opposed to, say, the American people.Trump made a similar comment on Twitter late yesterday: