Presidential historian Jon Meacham on Friday lashed out at President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE for calling the media an “enemy of the people,” saying it’s a “totalitarian” strategy.

Meacham, while appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," said Trump's frequent targeting of the media will become his legacy.

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“It’s an elective kind of base management,” Meacham said of Trump’s frequent attacks on the press. “It’s pernicious, it’s dangerous — and this is not media elite people defending media elite people.”

“It’s simply a Stalinist phrase, for God’s sake,” he added. “It comes out of totalitarian regimes to declare that a free press is the enemy of the people.”

Meacham, a frequent critic of the president, said he thinks it is in the best interest of the Trump administration to stop playing this “totalitarianism card.”

The “Morning Joe” segment on Friday was discussing White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders's refusal to agree or disagree with Trump’s claim that the media is the “enemy of the people.”

During a Thursday press conference, Sanders said she speaks on behalf of the president, who has made his thoughts about the press “very clear.”

CNN reporter Jim Acosta verbally sparred with Sanders during the briefing before walking out in protest.

David Ignatius, an associate editor at The Washington Post, in the "Morning Joe" segment went on to rip Sanders for her job performance.

“That press room that Sarah Sanders is running is toxic,” Ignatius said. “I’ve never seen anything like that in 40-plus years of being a journalist. She should be ashamed of the briefing process that she’s running.”

Ignatius pointed out that Sanders’s defense of the president contrasted with White House adviser Ivanka Trump Ivana (Ivanka) Marie TrumpThe Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump stokes fears over November election outcome Special counsel investigating DeVos for potential Hatch Act violation: report Trump, Biden vie for Minnesota MORE, who disagreed with her father earlier on Thursday.

"I’ve received my fair share of reporting on me personally that I know not to be fully accurate, so I’ve had some sensitivity around why people have concerns and gripe, especially when they sort of feel targeted," Ivanka Trump said during an Axios event. "But no, I do not feel that the media is the enemy of the people."