Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for a “formal deprogramming” of “MAGA” supporters during a CNN interview that aired Thursday.
Clinton weighed in on the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who lost his gavel Tuesday, drawing a distinction between the “sane” wing of the Republican party and what she described as a Trumpist “cult.”
“I mean, we had very strong partisans in both parties in the past, and we had very bitter battles over all kinds of things,” Clinton said. “But there wasn’t this little tail of extremism, waving, you know, wagging the dog of the Republican party as it is today. And sadly, so many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists take their marching orders from Donald Trump, who has no credibility left by any measure. He’s only in it for himself. He’s now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions. And when do they break with him?”
“At some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen,” she added.
Clinton went on to say that Trump will likely be the GOP nominee in 2024 and that his supporters like Trump’s “nasty form of politics.” (RELATED: Hillary Clinton Blames ‘MAGA Republicans’ For Hot Weather In July)
“Maybe they don’t like migrants, maybe they don’t like gay people, or black people, or the woman who got the promotion at work they didn’t get, whatever the reason,” Clinton said. “So it is like a cult and somebody has to break that momentum.”
Clinton made a similar comment in 2016, saying “you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call a basket of deplorables,” who she described as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”
The former secretary of state lost to Trump in 2016, winning 232 electoral votes to Trump’s 306 despite receiving nearly three million more votes than her opponent.