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Ellison Compares Trump to King George: 'We Fought a War of Independence' Against Him

July 27, 2017

Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.) compared President Donald Trump to King George III on Thursday after being asked about Trump's Twitter use.

NPR's Rachel Martin asked Ellison why he thought that it was "damaging" for Trump to be on Twitter.

"I see it in general as a good thing to foster communication from the government, but I think it can be used in a very bad way because what he's doing through his Twitter account and in other ways is circumventing the whole system to intimidate people, to pack courts, to intimidate the press, all so that he can just run everything himself," Ellison said.

Ellison, the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, went on to say that the United States fought a war of independence against King George III of Great Britain in the 18th century.

"We fought a war of independence against somebody, King George, who was trying to do that. This is really why I'm actually kind of concerned about his use of social media, not the fact that he uses it," Ellison said.

"The way that he uses [Twitter], I think is damaging to representative democracy," Ellison added.

This is not the first time that Trump has been compared to King George III; Salon published a piece last month highlighting the "unsettling parallels between King George III and Donald Trump."