Former aides warn of ‘running out of time’ to
prevent Trump re-election
Sarah Matthews, Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah
Griffin insist Trump’s behavior would be worse if he wins second term
Richard
Luscombe
@richlusc
Sun 31 Dec
2023 21.08 GMT
The
re-election of Donald Trump in 2024 could “end American democracy as we know
it”, according to three women who worked for him in the White House during his
chaotic term in office.
All three
gave testimony to the US House committee investigating Trump’s efforts to
overturn his 2020 election defeat as well as the 6 January 6 Capitol attack
staged by his supporters. And they warned in an unprecedented television
interview on Sunday that time was short to prevent a second Trump
administration in which they insist his behavior would be much worse.
“People in
general have short memories, and might forget the chaos of the Trump years,”
Sarah Matthews, a former deputy White House press secretary who resigned on the
day of the deadly Capitol riot, said on ABC’s This Week.
“They also
might not just be paying attention to what he’s saying now – and the threat to
democracy that exists. It does really concern me if he makes it to the general
[election] that he could win. I’m still hopeful that we can defeat him in the
primaries, but we’re running out of time.”
Matthews
was joined in the interview by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a
key witness against Trump during the House committee’s public hearings in 2022,
and Alyssa Farah Griffin, his former communications director, who said she
dreaded him returning to office.
“Fundamentally,
a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and
I don’t say that lightly,” Griffin said.
“We all
witnessed him trying to steal a democratic election before and go into historic
and unconstitutional lengths to do so. That just shows he’s willing to
basically break every barrier to get into power and to stay into power.
“What
scares me as much as him and his retribution is the almost cult-like following
he has, the threats, the harassment, the death threats that you get when he
targets you, is really horrifying and has no place in our American discourse.”
About two
days before the interview aired, someone placed a fake emergency call to police
that prompted armed officers to arrive at the home of Maine’s secretary of
state, Shenna Bellows, after she removed Trump from the state’s presidential
primary under the US constitution’s insurrection clause. Bellows was not home
when the attempted “swatting” call was made.
Hutchinson,
ex-aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, said voters needed to believe
Trump when he said he would be a dictator on his first day back in the White
House.
“The fact
that he feels that he needs to lean into being a dictator alone shows that he
is a weak and feeble man,” she said.
Matthews,
meanwhile, said Trump had already signaled what his second administration would
look like.
“We don’t
need to speculate because we already saw it play out,” she said.
“To this
day, he still doubles down on the fact that he thinks that the election was
stolen and fraudulent. And his rhetoric has just gotten increasingly erratic.
He’s literally called for things like doing away with parts of the
constitution, [and] wanting to weaponize the department of justice to enact
revenge on his political enemies.
“I knew
that coming forward and speaking out against Donald Trump I could … face
security threats, or death threats, online harassment. Despite all the personal
sacrifice, I knew that ultimately it was the right thing to do. I just would
encourage others to come forward because they’re running out of time in order
to try to stop Trump from being in the Oval Office again.”
The courage
of the three women in speaking against Trump was a recurrent theme in the
interview by This Week’s co-anchor Jonathan Karl. Martin and Hutchinson spoke
of secret meetings in the basement of the Capitol with Liz Cheney, one of only
two Republicans who sat on the House committee, and their loss of friendships
with others in the Trump White House who felt the women had betrayed them.
“There were
critical parts of history that the public would not know if not for Cassidy
Hutchinson,” Griffin said.
“Other
senior officials witnessed them, but did not come forward. They did not
testify, whether it was credible threats about the attack on the Capitol, that
people showing up that day were going to be armed, that there was a scheme to
try to stop the vice-president certifying the election.
“I credit
these women who are younger than me and had not as senior of titles, and
stepped forward. For me, I want to be able to look my future kids in the eye
and say when history called, I did the right thing, and I had the courage to do
it.
“That
matters to me more than any future job or power structure that might exist if
he’s president again.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário