Dr. Allen Frances, former chairman of Duke University’s Psychiatry Department, went unchallenged on Sunday when he used an appearance on CNN to compare President Donald Trump to several of the worst mass-murdering autocrats of the 20th century.

Frances was on with Brian Stelter, who just finished a monologue defending the media’s place in raising questions about the president’s mental stability. His appearance was part of a discussion about whether mental health professionals can make any assessments about Trump from afar, without a personal interaction with him.

Frances argued that its a “terrible insult” to the mentally ill by lumping the president in with them.

“They have enough problems and stigma as it is,” Frances said. “Calling Trump ‘crazy’ hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist.”

That’s when Frances reached the crescendo:

“Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, Mao were in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were. He needs to be contained but he needs to be contained by attacking his policies, not his person.”

Frances continued to say that “psychological name-calling terms distracts us from getting out to vote,” so Stelter reminded him that the conversation is about “asking questions that are really uncomfortable.”

“The problem is the diagnosis offered have been amateurish,” Frances responded. “They don’t apply to Trump. They will never get Trump out of office.”

UPDATE – 12:58 p.m. ET: After the show, Stelter expressed regret for not challenging Frances, saying he couldn’t hear him due to technical difficulties.

I agree that I should have interrupted after that line. I wish I had heard him say it, but I was distracted by tech difficulties (that’s why the show open didn’t look the way it normally does, I had two computers at the table, etc). Not hearing the comment is my fault. — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 25, 2019

Watch above, via CNN.

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