Rachel Maddow said she is “worried” that a return of Donald Trump to the presidency could mean people are being forced into “camps” to hold illegal immigrants.
MSNBC primetime host He told CNN “Having in power a man who has publicly vowed to build camps to house millions of people and to ‘exterminate’ those he describes in subhuman terms as ‘enemies within’ should worry the entire country,” she said Monday.
Maddow added: “Now, how can we be so sure that these massive camps that he’s planning are just for immigrants? So, yes, I’m worried about myself, but I’m just as worried about all of us.”
Recent polls have shown President Trump leading Biden in several key battleground states, raising fears among Democrats and their supporters that the Republican front-runner will launch a retaliatory campaign against his political opponents.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) recently told podcaster Kara Swisher that she wouldn’t be surprised if this guy sent me to prison.
Maddow predicted Monday that President Trump would send in the military to root out illegal immigrants.
“When President Trump invokes the Insurrection Act to send in U.S. troops against civilians on his first day in office, do you think he’s going to rescind that order on his second day?” Maddow asked.
Maddow was referring to President Trump’s plans to launch a massive crackdown on illegal immigration, which reportedly includes rounding up illegal aliens and building detention camps.
When asked by Time magazine last month whether he would build migrant detention camps, the former president said he was “not ruling anything out,” but added that “we’re going to deport them” so “we won’t need as many camps.”
In Time InterviewTrump, whose case was brought by the Justice Department and Democratic district attorneys in Georgia and New York, said Biden “will be indicted on 20 different counts.”
Trump said that if the Supreme Court rules that the president has no immunity, Biden “will be prosecuted for all of the crimes because he has committed so many crimes.”
Maddow was asked by CNN if she was “concerned that she’ll be targeted” given the fact that she’s “one of the most influential people” in the White House. [Trump’s] Television’s most famous critic.”
She responded that there was “a bit of a sense of complacency” that Trump was “going to attack individuals who he’s already targeted.”
Maddow also warned that people who support Trump could also face persecution.
“It’s also clear that some in politics believe they’ll be safe, even maybe benefit, from siding with Trump,” she said.
“You’ll have to ask Mike Pence to see what the end result will be.”
Pence’s relationship with Trump fell apart after the then-vice president refused to intervene in the congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Trump told Time magazine that he doesn’t consider illegal immigrants “civilians” because “they’re not here legally.”
“This is an invasion of our country,” the former president said, “the likes of which probably no country has ever experienced.”
The Washington Post has reached out to Maddow, Biden and Trump for comment.
