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On Monday, in a press release, Donald Trump’s campaign team announced that “the majority of people who served in the cabinet [de l’ex-président] and in its administration […] massively support his candidacy” so that he can beat Joe Biden in the presidential election next November.
The claim may seem convincing at first glance. But above all she seeks to keep out of sight the increasingly long list of former collaborators of the populist who, for several months, have refused to line up behind their former boss.
All were key players in the tempestuous billionaire’s four-year presidency and, after describing his time in Washington, they now hope the Oval Office seat eludes him. Who are they ?
Mike Pence
Traditionally, the number 2 in American power supports its number 1, but not this time. The former vice-president said in mid-March on Fox News that he “could not, in [son] soul and conscience, support Donald Trump in this campaign”, although the former reality TV star is now assured of becoming the Republican candidate for this presidential election. “Donald Trump continues and sets out a program that is in contradiction with the conservative program that we followed to govern during our four years,” continued Mike Pence, breaking with Trump since he refused, on January 6, 2021, to bend to keep the populist in power against the will of the ballot box.
John Bolton
Donald Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019 has since become one of his biggest critics. On CNN a few days ago, he recalled that the only thing to remember from Trump’s four years in the White House is the certainty that he “is not fit to be president” . “He did a lot of damage during his first term. And he would do even more in a second,” he said, while deploring that the opposition to the ex-president in the conservative camp did not succeed in keeping him away from this presidential campaign.
Mark Esper
Difficult to be clearer. Last Friday, the former United States Secretary of Defense said during Bill Maher’s HBO show that Donald Trump “represents a threat to democracy” and that, therefore, there was “no chance” that he would support him next November. In his book A Sacred Oath, released in 2022, the former Pentagon boss paints a dark portrait of an unstable president, with questionable integrity and incapable of putting the interests of the country before his own. Last week, he assured that seeing Trump reveal his madness every day “opened the door a little more”, for him, to a vote for Joe Biden.
John Kelly
In interview at Washington Post, last November, Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, who surrounded him from 2017 to 2019, said he was dismayed by his former boss’ new march on the road to the White House. “What is happening in our country that even one person thinks this guy can still be a good president? he asked, calling the populist’s persistence something that goes “beyond [sa] understanding “. A few weeks earlier, on CNN, the retired general had called on God to help Americans avoid a second term for Donald Trump — “a person who admires murderous autocrats and dictators and who has nothing but contempt for our institutions democratic,” he said.
Ty Cobb
It’s quite a change of direction for this White House advisor, a fervent Trumpist, who supported the ex-president during the investigation into Russian interference linked to the 2016 election and who has just affirm in the pages of Washington Post that in November, he will vote for… Joe Biden. “If a vote is necessary to stop Trump, then I will reluctantly vote for Biden,” he said. According to him, the Republican’s return to the White House can only “accelerate the disappearance of democracy” in the United States, while “diminishing America’s place on the world stage.”
Anthony Scaramucci
Last Saturday, Trump’s former White House communications director reiterated on the social network his intention to vote for Joe Biden. “I have seen with my own eyes the dangers and instability of Donald Trump,” he wrote of the “lies, criminality and insecurity that push [le candidat républicain] to walk away from everything America has built, to destroy our democracy and to want to hug [Vladimir] Poutine “. In an election year that has become a “battle for democracy,” he says he wants to “work to stop it.”
Jenna Ellis
She was hauled into court in Georgia for plotting, with Trump, to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Last October, she even pleaded guilty and signed a plea deal with the court, and has since , the populist’s ex-lawyer says she “simply cannot support him again.” On American Family Radio, where she hosts a morning show, Ellis said she distanced herself from the ex-president “because of his frankly malignant and narcissistic tendency to say that he never did anything done wrong” and “the total and disturbing idolatry” of some of his supporters, who put “conservative principles after their love for a star”.
Cassidy Hutchinson
After going from assistant to Mark Meadows, former Trump chief of staff, to whistleblower and key witness to the congressional commission responsible for shedding light on the insurrection of January 6, 2021, Cassidy Hutchinson has been carrying herself ever since in defense of American democracy — and sees the former Republican president as a great threat to the rule of law. Last December, on ABC, she said that the 2024 elections were going to be “fundamental for safeguarding American institutions”. Few days ago, on MSNBCshe claimed to have “completely rejected the idea of voting for Donald Trump again” and called on “all those who want democracy to survive” to vote for Biden.
Stephanie Grisham
After spending six years in Donald Trump’s entourage, first as White House press secretary, then as chief of staff to Melania Trump, then first lady, Stephanie Grisham says she sees clearly in the game of ex-president, who wants nothing other than “to become a dictator”, according to her. This is what she said on CNN on the sidelines of the meeting between her former boss and Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán held in early March at Mar-a-Lago. And now, she even says she is ready to work for Joe Biden’s team to prevent the Republican’s re-election. “We must see Donald Trump’s second term as a project allowing him to become stronger, tougher with his own people, less kind to our allies. And I think those are things to think about. »
Alyssa Farah Griffin
Last week, the former communications director under Trump protested at the image of her former boss selling Bibles at $60 per copy to finance his electoral campaign and his legal bills, which are climbing under the effect of the 88 charges against him. ” He [vend un livre sacré] to make profits. And that tells you everything you need to know about him.” she said on ABC. The former Trump aide has yet to say who she will vote for, but she praised Mike Pence’s courage in not supporting the populist’s election campaign. “For those of us who were conservatives before Trump started calling himself one, the floor [de l’ex-vice-président] matters,” she wrote on X.