Hillary Clinton implied that if former President Donald Trump wins the upcoming 2024 presidential election, he would go to violent extremes regarding his opponents and journalists.
During an interview on the podcast, Defending Democracy on Friday, Clinton spoke to host Marc Elias about Trump’s behavior and remarks, the 2016 presidential election and the 2020 presidential election, the Supreme Court, President Joe Biden, and the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
“We haven’t talked much about the international arena, but, you know, his bromance with Putin. It was actually called that I think by the former prime minister of Australia, who said he saw Trump with Putin and Trump was like, you know, just gaga over Putin because Putin does what he [Trump] would like to do: kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive, you know, journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance,” Clinton said. “That’s what Trump really wants.”
Clinton’s words come as Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) introduced the Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED) Former Protectees Act, which would remove Trump’s Secret Service protection if he is convicted in his trial.
The former secretary of state continued to add that people needed to be “very conscious of how” Trump “sees the world,” adding that he “only sees strong men leaders.”
“He sees Putin, he sees Xi, he sees Kim Jong-un in North Korea. Those are the people he is modeling himself after, and we’ve been down this road in our, you know, world history,” Clinton continued. “We sure don’t want to go down that again.”
This is not the first time the former secretary of state and failed presidential candidate has implied Trump has done Russia’s bidding or that there has been collusion between Putin and Trump.
In September 2023, during an interview with former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Clinton warned that Putin could interfere in the 2024 presidential election.
Prior to this interview, Special Counsel John Durham released a report in May 2023 that found that the Department of Justice and the FBI should never have opened an investigation into the Trump campaign.
Durham’s report also found that the FBI had received “highly significant intelligence” from a trusted foreign source that Clinton’s campaign had created a plan to “vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin.”