Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson excoriated Donald Trump in an interview and urged members of her own party to consider that a second term in office for the ex-president could be a threat to the future of US democracy.
Ms Hutchinson was speaking with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, and asked her fellow Republicans to consider the seriousness of the matter, pointing to Mr Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election even after his legal challenges had all failed in the courts.
"Do we want people who have already shown that they are willing and want to overthrow an election for a duly elected president, which is the pinnacle of our democracy – do we want to put people like that back in power?" she asked.
Ms Hutchinson also touched on the criminal case against Mr Trump for mishandling classified US defence documents, arguing that it was another disqualifying factor against the former president.
“Do we want to put people back in power that have mishandled, and have been showed to have mishandled, the most sensitive national security secrets that our nation has?” Ms Hutchinson continued.
Her criticism follows her testimony to the January 6 investigation launched by the House last year; the former White House aide made startling allegations about the ex-president’s demeanour and actions in the days leading up to and during the attack on the Capitol, while also providing a revealing depiction of how bad even Mr Trump’s own White House staffers expected that day to be.
She’s also just one of a long list of former Trump White House officials who have come out and made such allegations since their respective departures from the administration.
Another of those ex-officials is former White House comms director Alyssa Farah Griffin, who on Twitter has called Ms Hutchinson’s new memoir Enough “one of the definitive pieces on Trump’s utter unfitness for the Presidency.”
Ms Hutchinson’s book, an account of her time in the administration, released Tuesday.
Despite the mounting criticism, Mr Trump remains the wide favourite to win the 2024 GOP nomination.
He continues to face 91 felony charges stemming from four criminal indictments as he pursues the presidency a third time; polls show him dominating the GOP primary field and roughly tied with President Joe Biden in a general election scenario.
