Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, whose testimony before the House Jan. 6 Committee last year depicted the inner workings of a presidential administration in chaos, delivered an urgent message Monday to Republicans in Congress who continue to publicly support Donald Trump: “now is the time” to “take a stand” against him.
In her first live television interview, Hutchinson was asked by MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow about Trump’s sustained lead in GOP primary polls only four months out from the Iowa caucuses.
“Why do you think your fellow Republicans want him more than they want anybody else as their next candidate for the White House?” Maddow asked.
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Hutchinson, while still a Republican, took issue with the phrase “fellow Republicans,” saying, “I do not think we are part of the same Republican Party.”
“I consider myself a Republican in the sense of Senator Mitt Romney and the Reagan Republican Party. I believe that the Republican Party needs a strong, conservative party. I do not believe that Mr. Trump is a strong Republican,” she said.
Hutchinson, whose book about her experience at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue comes out Tuesday, stressed that the 2024 election is a “make-or-break moment” for the GOP to make it clear that the former president, who has been indicted in four jurisdictions since leaving office and has threatened to imprison his political opponents as revenge, is unfit for his old job that he tried desperately to hold onto.
“Now is the time, if these politicians, these men and some women that are currently in Congress, want to make the break and want to take the stand, they have to do it now. We can’t wait any longer for them to do it. I don’t know why they are so willing to support him. I think it’s extremely disappointing and it is not a hard issue to take,” Hutchinson said.
One reason could be that some lawmakers fear for the safety of themselves and their families if they spoke out, which is what Sen. Romney alleged, according to an excerpt from a forthcoming biography of the Utah senator published in The Atlantic this month.
Hutchinson seemingly confirmed those claims in an interview on CBS Sunday Morning, saying she had to move out of Washington, D.C., after her congressional testimony due to concerns about her safety.
Regardless, the former Trump aide said that she “would not have a clear conscience and be able to sleep at night if I were a Republican in Congress that supported Donald Trump.”
“We’re talking about a man who, at the very essence of his being, almost destroyed democracy in one day, and he wants to do it again,” she warned. “He wants to run for president to do it again.”
After Trump was impeached for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, he was acquitted thanks to Republicans in the Senate, only seven of whom casted ‘guilty’ votes, Romney among them. A conviction would have barred Trump from holding office again.
