Former President Donald Trump‘s “worst instincts” are leading his supporters to a “very, very dark place,” according to former Trump administration official Elizabeth Neumann.
Neumann, who served in multiple high-level roles at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during Trump’s presidency, is one of several former Trump officials who have recently been issuing warnings about the Republican candidate as he seeks to return to the White House by defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Neumann told MSNBC host Katy Tur in an interview on Friday that she believes Trump supporters are giving him an unwarranted “pass” and dismissing authoritarian remarks that should be taken seriously while adding that the way the ex-president behaves “behind closed doors” would “frighten” most Americans.
“You need to take what he says seriously,” Neumann said. “When he says he wants to be ‘a dictator on day one,’ he actually means that. He kind of says it in a joking way; he says it in a way that allows people to give him a pass. Do not give him a pass.”
“In closed doors, his worst instincts would frighten the average American,” she added. “He has no humanity, no decency, no respect…instead, [he] is just willing to toss people aside to achieve his aims. He is very dangerous, indeed.”
Neumann said that Trump’s potential return to power is “posing a threat” to freedom and the “American way of life,” arguing that the election is less about policy differences than it is about choosing a candidate fit for office.
Former President Donald Trump at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, on October 19. Former Trump administration official Elizabeth Neumann warned voters that Trump’s “worst instincts” were visible behind “closed doors.”
Win McNamee/Getty Images
“It’s about whether we put someone into office who has the character and the competence to take that oath of office,” said Neumann. “He doesn’t care about the Constitution. He doesn’t care about upholding the rule of law. They are just constraints to him that he is more than happy to shrug off, kick off.”
“[Trump is] very delighted, in fact, to mete out the worst instincts that we have seen in history when we put people with those authoritarian tendencies into positions of power,” she said. “It leads to violence, it leads to destruction, and it certainly leads to a loss of freedom.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment on Friday evening.
John Kelly, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general who served as White House chief of staff and DHS secretary during Trump’s term, warned earlier this week that he had personally witnessed the former president argue that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler “did some good things” and offer praise for “Hitler’s generals.”
Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, also called Trump a “fascist” and confirmed his previous account of the the-president calling U.S. soldiers killed or injured in action “losers and suckers” while he was in office.
Trump responded to Kelly’s claims by calling a “lowlife” who simply “made up” his recollections in a Truth Social post, diagnosing his former chief of staff with “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
More than a dozen former Trump administration officials, including Neumann, signed a letter this week supporting former Kelly’s remarks about the ex-president, writing that they “applaud General Kelly for highlighting in stark details the danger of a second Trump term.”
Neumann, who was a senior adviser to Kelly during his time at DHS, said during her MSNBC interview on Friday that it was “important” for Kelly and others to issue a “warning” to voters because Trump is “unfit to serve.”
“[Trump is] dangerous, unfit to serve, and I think he desires to be an authoritarian,” she said. “He is leading this country, a certain segment of this country, to a very, very dark place. And that’s why it’s important for myself, and for people like John Kelly and others, to try to issue this warning.”
