Hillary Clinton tore into Fox News during a recent interview with The Guardian, calling the cable news network “a wholly owned subsidiary” of the Trump administration that peddles in propaganda.

In an interview with the British newspaper published Friday, the former secretary of state and twice-failed presidential candidate accused President Trump of being “quite a student of authoritarian regimes” who craves adulation and “dominance over any situation he finds himself in.”

Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Trump fits the description of authoritarian movements and leaders throughout history who worked to “destroy a common base of fact and evidence” and create an “alternative reality.”

“One of the ways you do that is by consistently attacking the press,” she argued. “Now [Mr. Trump] doesn’t attack Fox News, because they’re like a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump and the Republican party now. So he attacks the press and the broadcast media that raise questions about him, that don’t give him fidelity and loyalty.

“You watch Fox News, it’s always, ‘Something terrible is about to happen,’ ‘Something terrible did happen,’ ‘These people are doing all these awful things.’ It is totally divorced from reality, but it is superb propaganda,” she said. “I don’t know the best way to puncture that. You have to hope that reality catches up with politics and entertainment at some point.”

Mrs. Clinton also criticized the media as a whole in how they cover the current president.

“I believe that where we are now in the political cycle is that the press does not know how to cover these candidates who are setting themselves on fire every day, who are masters of diversion and distraction,” she said.

“So at some point, the press has to get smarter because that’s basically how most voters get their information,” she added. “If you’re into both-side-ism — so, you know, on the one hand this, and on the other hand that — really there’s no factual basis, there’s no evidence, there’s no record. Everybody lies, everybody gilds the lily. It doesn’t really matter. That just opens a door to somebody like him.”

Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.