Hillary Clinton compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler this week as she warned about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.
“I think it would be the end of our country as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly,” the former first lady and U.S. secretary of state said on daytime talk show The View on Wednesday.
During the interview, Clinton, 76, recalled her tenure as U.S. secretary of state and said she used to refer to the concept of elected leaders who were “one and done,” meaning they would be democratically elected, and then do away with the electoral system and an independent press.
“And you could see it in countries where — well, Hitler was duly elected, right?” said Clinton, who is a Democrat.
“And so all of a sudden, somebody with those tendencies, those dictatorial, authoritarian tendencies, would be like, ‘OK, we’re going to shut this down. We’re going to throw these people in jail,’ and they didn’t usually telegraph that.
“Trump is telling us what he intends to do. Take him at his word. The man means to throw people in jail who disagree with him, shut down legitimate press outlets, do what he can to literally undermine the rule of law and our country’s values.”
Trump, 77, is seeking the Republican party’s nomination to become its presidential candidate in 2024, and polls show him as the clear front-runner.
He is also in the midst of a civil fraud trial in New York, one of several court cases in which the former U.S. president is currently embroiled. During his testimony on Monday, he complained to the court of unfair treatment. The judge overseeing the trial warned he would cut Trump’s testimony short.
Trump is also facing four criminal prosecutions, some of which relate to his time in the White House.
One of the cases, filed in Georgia, accuses him and others of trying to overturn the state’s results of the 2020 presidential election, in part by allegedly harassing an election worker and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favourable to Trump.