US politics
Three former employees explain their fear of Trump’s re-election – then he turns the tables
He wants to go back to the White House: former US President Donald Trump
© Mary Altaffer / AFP
They worked in the White House under Donald Trump – and are now warning about his return. Three former employees opened up about their former boss in detail on Sunday. He didn’t let it go.
There will be elections in the USA at the end of the year – and despite numerous criminal proceedings, former President Donald Trump is expected to have a good chance of winning the election against his successor Joe Biden. Three of his former employees are now warning about what they see as the dramatic consequences of his re-election. Trump’s response didn’t take long to arrive.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sarah Matthews and Cassidy Hutchinson know what they’re talking about. They all held high positions in the White House under Donald Trump: Hutchinson headed the office of Chief of Staff Mark Maedows, Matthiews was deputy press secretary of the White House, Griffin worked as director of strategic communications, a position specially created by Trump. All three are young, conservative – and fear that Trump will be re-elected, as they revealed in a joint interview on “ABC”.
Fear of re-election
“A second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it,” Griffin told his host Jonathan Karl for sure. She doesn’t say it like that, she emphasizes. “We’ve all witnessed him trying to steal a democratic election. And the historic and unconstitutional lengths he’s gone to to do it. He’s willing to break through any barrier to gain and keep power.” , warns Griffin. She knows what she’s talking about: Griffin worked in Trump’s immediate environment until shortly after the 2020 election, but resigned in protest against his claims of election manipulation.
The former colleagues have no illusions either. “We don’t need to speculate about what a second term in office would look like. We’ve already seen how it works,” believes Matthews. “To this day he continues to claim that the election was stolen or rigged.” His rhetoric is “increasingly erotic,” she said, referring to Trump’s gaffes in weaponizing political institutions.
Hutchinson sees it similarly. “The fact that he flirts with wanting to be a dictator shows what a weak and fragile man he really is,” she is convinced. Trump said at a town hall meeting that he wanted to be “a dictator, but only on day one.” (find out more here). “He has no sense of what it means to have character or integrity and what it means to be a good leader.”
The three lifelong Republicans agree on one thing: Trump must be prevented. “Our only goal must be to prevent his re-election if he does become a candidate,” Hutchinson said. “I’ve never voted for a Democrat in my life,” agrees Matthews. “But in this next election you have to put politics aside and save democracy.” So I still hope that another Republican candidate would take Trump’s place.
Trump is on the attack
It didn’t take long for the former president to react to the attack by his former employees, but it was surprisingly moderate by Trump’s standards. Instead of attacking the three women with tirades, as is usual with Trump’s profile on Truth Social, he preferred to let their own words speak against them. In a series of posts, Trump simply strung together screenshots, interview quotes and clips of the three women from their time in the White House in which they raved about the then-boss.
The criticism definitely has an aftertaste. In her resignation letter, Griffin called working under Trump “the honor of her life.” Matthews also had nothing but praise to say about the former boss in a tweet. “Thank you President Trump and Vice President Pence for your service to the American people,” she said in a tweet, saying it was an honor to serve the nation in this way. The tweet comes from the last day of Trump’s term in office on January 20, 2021 – two weeks after the storming of the Capitol.
Sources: ABC, Truth Social