Robert Redford has said that Donald Trump has taken Richard Nixon’s attacks on journalism to “new and dangerous heights”, in a column written for the Washington Post.

In the article, titled 45 Years After Watergate, the Truth Is Again in Danger, the actor writes of his concerns that, if a political scandal similar to the one that brought down Nixon occurred today, it might not be “navigated” as well due to the public’s “tenuous grasp on truth”.

Redford is more familiar than most with Watergate. In 1976 he played Post journalist Bob Woodward in All the President’s Men, Alan J Pakula’s film about the attempts by Woodward and Carl Bernstein (played by Dustin Hoffman) to investigate the scandal that would ultimately force Nixon to resign from the presidency.

“This year marks the 45th anniversary of the Watergate scandal,” he writes in the article. “Because of my role in the film, some have asked me about the similarities between our situations in 1972 and 2017. There are many. The biggest one is the importance of a free and independent media in defending our democracy.

“When President Trump speaks of being in a ‘running war’ with the media, calls them ‘among the most dishonest human beings on Earth’ and tweets that they’re the ‘enemy of the American people,’ his language takes the Nixon administration’s false accusations of ‘shoddy’ and ‘shabby’ journalism to new and dangerous heights.”

Redford writes that Nixon stepped down because of “bravery and honesty by Americans across the political spectrum. There was a time during a period of national crisis when politicians from both sides of the aisle put partisan politics aside to uncover the truth”.

But Redford is concerned that in today’s “divided” America, things might be different.

“If we have another Watergate, will we navigate it as well? In a statement in May 1973, John Dean [Nixon’s counsel, who went on to testify against the President in front of a grand jury] addressed what he described as efforts to discredit his testimony by discrediting him personally. He famously said: ‘The truth always emerges.’ I’m concerned about its chances these days.”

In 2015, Redford was forced to deny that he had endorsed Trump for president after Trump tweeted a quote from Redford that spoke positively of the then-Republican primary candidate. “He enjoys him but not for president,” a rep for the actor told the Hollywood Reporter.