MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow claimed Monday that former President Trump's re-election pitch is that he will be a strongman leader who will end politics in the U.S. if given the chance.
"Donald Trump is not leading the Republican Party and leading the Republican field of candidates because of his youthful vigor or because of his eloquence. None of that is going on," Maddow told Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary for President Biden and her current colleague at MSNBC.
Maddow argued that Trump is increasingly being honest about his dictatorial ambitions to his base.
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"What he's offering is what he both inherently offers and now, more and more, explicitly offers, which is that ‘if you pick me, that’s the end of politics,'" Maddow said.
The MSNBC anchor summarized the deal that American voters would get in the scenario that Trump wins the 2024 election and causes, in her view, the collapse of the American political system.
"You won't have to deal with politics anymore. You won't have to deal with contested elections. You won't have to deal with contests or divisions when it comes to power. You'll have a strongman leader, and I'll just do what I want. Won't that be a lot simpler?" Maddow said, paraphrasing Trump's re-election pitch.
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"That's what he's offering," Maddow said. "That strongman model is what the Republican base is enthused about. That sets him apart from every other Republican candidate. And I think that we're naive to think that he's tricking people into picking him and then surprised that he's going to act like a dictator."
"What's he's offering is strongman leadership, the end of politics, the end of elections" and the "sidelining" of major branches of government, like Congress and the Judiciary, Maddow said. "He'll be the man in charge and he'll get it done."
"That's what he's selling and that's what they're very eager to buy," she added, referring to Republican supporters of Trump.
Trump has shot down accusations that he and the Republican Party are aiming to end U.S. democracy. If he is elected president again, he can only serve one term due to constitutional limits.
Trump said in a speech hosted by the New York Young Republican Club that claims that he is a threat to democracy are a "hoax" and a "new idea."
Trump went on to say that Democrats and the media "think the threat to democracy will save Biden from having created the worst inflation in our country's history, a fragile economy that may soon end in a depression like 1929 … We are very, very close to a depression, the likes of which you have never seen. We owe $36 trillion and this guy has no clue."
