Hillary Clinton, the ex-Secretary of State, expressed in a podcast released on Friday her belief that former President Donald Trump aims to emulate dictators such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump defeated Clinton in the 2016 election and she has claimed that he has ties to Russia. On the “Democracy Docket” podcast, Clinton accused Trump of patterning himself after Putin and other dictators worldwide, insinuating that her previous rival intends to carry out atrocious deeds against his dissenters.
“Putin does what [Trump] would like to do,” Clinton told election lawyer Marc Elias during the podcast. “Kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists into exile, rule without any check or balance. That’s what Trump really wants. And so we have to be very conscious of how he sees the world because in that world, 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. We sure don’t want to go down that again.”
WATCH:
“My view, having negotiated with Putin, and knowing one of the reasons he went after me is because he knew I would deal with him in an appropriate way, and Trump would basically do whatever he wanted, it’s really important to think about what could happen to our world with Trump back in the White House,” Clinton added. “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.”
The 2016 campaign of Clinton financed an outdated dossier put together by Christopher Steele, which claimed that Trump had conspired with Russia during the election.