Former Trump White House staffer Sarah Matthews on Sunday sounded the alarm on Donald Trump’s increasingly disturbing comments.
The former president has “gotten more unhinged in his rhetoric,” Matthews, who resigned as Trump’s deputy press secretary on the day of the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki.
“Obviously, Donald Trump’s first four years in office were marked by lots of controversies but I think that the type of rhetoric that he is using today, it’s really concerning,” Matthews said. “It’s almost Hitler-esque in a way, especially when he talks about things like immigration, saying things like, ‘Poisoning the blood of our country.’”
Matthews added, “I mean, he is trying to prey on people’s worst instincts and get them angry and riled up. That is something he tends to do, but it’s just the rhetoric that he’s using is really concerning to me now.”
Matthews, who testified before the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, acknowledged that it may sound “pretty alarmist” to warn of her former boss’ threat to democracy if he wins a second term.
But she urged voters to listen to Trump’s own words, like when he said he’d be a dictator on day one, and think about his actions, such as his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result.
Psaki asked Matthews if she’d back President Joe Biden if the 2024 election was a rerun of 2020 between Biden and Trump.
“I have said that if it is a choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in a general election, that even if I don’t agree with the policies of President Biden, that I would put policy aside and I would cast my vote for him for democracy,” she replied. “Because I look at Donald Trump, and this is someone who has shown us he will not uphold the Constitution. And so, there is no question in my mind then that I would be voting for Joe Biden.”
Matthews said she did support Trump’s Republican primary rival Nikki Haley, however, whose 40% vote in South Carolina she said had shown her that some Republicans do want to move on from Trump.
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