Sarah Matthews, a former White House aide to Donald Trump, criticized the current administration’s “gaslighting” on Friday after the president endorsed a social media post advocating for the execution of Democrats in Congress.
“It’s mind-boggling but not surprising,” Matthews said during an appearance on MS NOW.
In addition to Trump sharing a Truth Social user’s call to “HANG THEM” in response to Democratic veterans urging military members to refuse unlawful orders, he declared that “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR” was “punishable by DEATH” in another post.
Matthews, who served as a White House deputy press secretary in Trump’s first term and resigned after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, described it as “absolutely insane” that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other Trump officials are defending the post.
“If this was any other president, we would be having conversations about the 25th Amendment if they were calling for members of the opposing party to be hanged,” Matthews said.
She criticized Leavitt for suggesting that the Democrats could incite violence with their video.
“To me, it looks like the president is the one very clearly inciting violence here,” Matthews stated.
She also highlighted the calls from politicians and others to “tone down the rhetoric” following Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
“But instead, the president is the one who keeps escalating it,” she added.
Matthews expressed disappointment that Republicans are defending Trump’s posts instead of unequivocally condemning them as all lawmakers should.
“It really shows how divided we are as a country and how Trump has normalized this kind of rhetoric, desensitizing us as Americans to what is truly unacceptable,” she concluded.
Watch more of MS NOW’s segment on Trump’s posts below.
