Benzinga – by Bibhu Pattnaik, Benzinga Staff Writer.
On Friday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, slammed former President Donald Trump in a blistering critique during an appearance on a podcast hosted by Marc Elias, a Democractic election lawyer.
On the “Defending Democracy” podcast, Clinton suggested that Trump, if re-elected, would be happy to “kill his opposition” if he’s re-elected president.
She said that Trump would prefer to suppress his opposition similarly to authoritarian leaders like Russian president Vladimir Putin, accusing Trump of admiring leaders who exercise unchecked power, including jailing or exiling opposition and journalists.
“Trump was like, you know, just gaga over Putin because Putin does what Trump would like to do: Kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance,” Clinton said.
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“That’s what Trump really wants,” she added. “And so we have to be very conscious of how he sees the world because, in that world, he only sees strongmen 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. We sure don’t want to go down that again.”
Clinton expressed concerns about the implications of Trump’s potential re-election, including the possibility of withdrawing the U.S. from NATO and adopting an authoritarian governance style in the U.S.
“Withdrawing us from NATO, not caring about what happens with Europe, the idea that he wants Ukraine to fail. The idea that he doesn’t want us to be able to surveil our enemies. This is a very scary prospect,” she said.
She highlighted her experiences negotiating with Putin and contrasted her approach with Trump’s, suggesting that Trump’s leadership could lead to negative consequences for global politics and security.
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This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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