MSNBC’s Joy Reid compared President Trump to the Romanov rulers of Imperial Russia on Friday, saying that Trump believes “I am the state, all that matters is me.”

Watch:

“Do you think they would sacrifice and independent judiciary, an independent press, a free press, the institutions of the federal government, especially the FBI, the CIA, all to save his skin, would he be glad to destroy all that?” asked Matthews.

“In a hot second, I think Eli is one-hundred percent right,” said MSNBC’s Joy Reid. “This is I am the state, all that matters is me. This is the fever dream of Roger Stone if Nixon could have run Watergate this way and had the Republican party defend him, trash the media, trash the CIA, the FBI, everything that is not there to shore up Donald Trump is an enemy of the state because the state is Donald Trump. It’s really frightening when you think about it.”

“As an American, this is not he republic that was set up,” continued Reid. “Donald Trump is not the state, but in his mind, he might as well be a Romanov. The state is him, and anyone can be an enemy, even the CIA and the FBI. It’s really frightening.”

“The Romanovs – they come as a family, they rule as a family, only for themselves,” said Matthews.

Follow Julia Nista on Twitter