Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin said former President Trump spoke about the death penalty multiple times during White House meetings.
Farrah Griffin Participated We spoke with Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin about his memories of the Trump administration and what a second term for the president might look like.
McLaughlin asked Farrah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View,” why several prominent Republican figures, including former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Attorney General Bill Barr, continue to support Trump despite knowing the destruction he could cause.
“It’s power,” she replied. “I think power is one of the most attractive things we have in society.”
Farrah Griffin referred to an interview Barr gave to CNN’s Kaitlyn Collins in April, asking the former attorney general if he recalled the former president saying that anyone who leaked information that he had taken refuge in a bunker during the 2020 George Floyd protests should be executed.
Barr said he remembers the former president being “very upset about that.” He said he didn’t remember whether Trump specifically called for the execution of anyone, but that he doubted that any were executed, “and I don’t dispute that.”
Farrah Griffin, who was at the meeting, said Trump “made it very clear that any staff member who leaked that information should be executed.”
“But some spoke about execution,” she said.
“And I wonder how anyone with sound judgment could rationalize that that person is fit to be president of the United States,” Farrah Griffin continued.
She argued that Haley, Barr and other Republicans who were once critical of Trump but now support his presidential campaign against Biden are “reading the signs.”
“They know that there’s a very good chance that Trump will be president again, and there’s not a lot of glory or victory to be had by being on the wrong side of Trump even if you’re saying the right things,” she said. “I think that’s what it comes down to.”
Farrah Griffin said that while she wanted to support Haley, she thought it was “pathetic” that she endorsed Trump in mid-May after dropping her own presidential bid. “She knows she shouldn’t have done that,” she said.
She went on to point out that almost every Republican who has been a presidential candidate has condemned Trump, with the exception of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R) and perhaps former President George Bush.
“All of the people that we trust and who have reached a level of seriousness where they could imagine themselves in the Oval Office are saying, ‘Oh, no, no, this guy shouldn’t be in the Oval Office,'” she said.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
