Iconic news anchor Dan Rather cut through much of the nonsense in this week's debate about "civility" and laid the blame for declining standards in politics squarely where it belongs: on President Donald Trump.

Rather made the case on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" Tuesday night.

“Who lit the fires of hate and incivility?" he asked. "It began with Donald Trump’s campaign.”

In recent days, many in the press and in Congress have denounced the supposed lack of civility from liberals, supposedly evidenced in White House press secretary Sarah Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant and in Rep. Maxine Waters' (D-CA) call for Trump administration officials to be protested.

But Rather sees through this hypocrisy.

"To make any comparison between what is happening in some obscure restaurant somewhere with the kind of, I hate to say it, but lies, corruption, immoral acts, like ripping children from their mothers... and to equate that with something that happened at a restaurant is a hypocritical farce," he said.

Watch the clip below: