MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is "worried" former President Trump could throw her in jail or even some sort of camp for high-profile liberals if he’s victorious in November.
Maddow, who has largely built her program around passionate criticism of Trump for years, famously pushed since-debunked theories tying the former president to Russia. Now she’s concerned Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, will weaponize the government and throw his media critics in jail if he defeats President Biden in November.
"I'm worried about the country broadly if we put someone in power who is openly avowing that he plans to build camps to hold millions of people, and to ‘root out’ what he’s described in subhuman terms as his ‘enemy from within.’ Again, history is helpful here. He’s not joking when he says this stuff, and we’ve seen what happens when people take power proclaiming that kind of agenda," Maddow told CNN, adding that Trump would also go after his political rivals.
"For that matter, what convinces you that these massive camps he’s planning are only for migrants?," Maddow continued. "I’m worried about me — but only as much as I’m worried about all of us."
CNN’s reporter did not push back on this in the print Q&A and had set Maddow up to give an explosive answer by initially asking, "Trump and his allies are openly talking about weaponizing the government to seek revenge against critics in media … you're one of his most notable critics on television. Are you worried that you could be a target?"
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Maddow famously cut "The Rachel Maddow Show" to once a week in 2022 to pursue other projects despite her enormous salary, which has been reported to be roughly $30 million per year. Her interview with CNN was meant to promote one of the other projects, a podcast.
Earlier this year, Maddow criticized her own network for airing Trump's victory speech on Super Tuesday and claimed it was "irresponsible to broadcast." She was asked where she stands on whether news networks should broadcast Trump live.
"I don’t think there’s any simple hard-and-fast rule that makes these decisions easy. You take things case by case, situation by situation, lie by lie. I do think it’s important to constantly revisit these decisions in a rigorous way, guarding in particular against letting ourselves be used for any purpose other than our own journalistic mission," Maddow told CNN.
Maddow has also expressed concern that Trump would become a dictator if reelected.
