Day 88: Turkish
media,
Reuters, and other news outlets report that President Trump called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on winning a referendum greatly expanding his political powers, a development that appears to put the pivotal Middle Eastern country on a fast track
to dictatorship. (Notably, Russia's state-sponsored
Sputnik International is among the first to post the news.) Trump's phone call (subsequently
confirmed by the White House) comes even as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
blasts the Turkish election process as conspicuously tilted in Erdogan's favor and "inadequate for the holding of a genuine democratic process."