Ronald Reagan's daughter says new restrictions on how the media can cover White House press briefings is a consequence of President Donald Trump trying to be a dictator.
"The new White House tactic of barring cameras from the press briefings is pure bullying," Patti Davis, Reagan's youngest daughter, said Tuesday on her Facebook page.
"It's Donald Trump acting on his love of dictators, and trying to be one."
In recent weeks, the White House has held fewer press briefings and banned cameras from televising some of them. In those, only audio, or in some cases note-taking, has been allowed.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer has denied the president is trying to cut off access to the press.
"We engage with the press corps very robustly from early in the morning 'til late at night. The briefing is one small part of what this extensive staff does," he said in an interview with Fox News' "Media Buzz" with Howard Kurtz.
But Davis, an outspoken liberal and critic of the Trump administration, isn't buying it.
"If [Trump] or any of his staff had actually read the Constitution, they would know that they work for us, the American people. And we have a right to see what's going on," she said.
Trump, a fan of Reagan who has compared himself to the nation's 40th president, has been criticized many times by Davis.
In May, she said the firing of FBI Director James Comey proved that "with each step, Trump is bringing us closer to a dictatorship."
She also condemned Trump's removal of researchers from the Environmental Protection Agency's Science Review Board, saying, "This planet is not going to survive the Trump administration. I pray for impeachment."
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