Hillary Clinton on MAGA Republicans: ‘There Needs To Be a Formal Deprogramming of the Cult Members’

>> Amanpour: So when you look at how to go forward with the country you say, is there any area of coalition building that could happen? There are pragmatic Republicans, as you say. Could there be a new a whole new way of trying to, you know, get legislation going and cross-party governance going by Democrats and certain Republicans forming a coalition?

>> CLINTON: Well you saw the number of Republicans who voted along with Democrats to keep the government open. So there’s clearly a common sense, you know, sane part of the Republican caucus in the house. But I think they are intimidated. They oftentimes you know, say and do things which they know better than to say or do, and it will require us defeating those most extreme measures, and the people who promote them, in order to try to get to some common ground where people can, again, work together. That’s the way it used to be. I mean, we had very strong partisans in both parties in the past, and we had very bitter battles over all kinds of things. Gun control and climate change and the economy and taxes. But there wasn’t this little tail of extremism wagging the dog of the Republican Party as it is today. And sadly, so many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists, take their marching orders from Donald Trump who has no credibility left by any measure. He’s only in it for himself. He’s now defending himself in civil actions, in criminal actions, and when do they break with him? You know, because at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen.

>> I Think sadly he will still be the nominee and we have to defeat him and we have to defeat those who are the election deniers as we did in 2020 and 2022. And we have to, you know, just be smarter about how we are trying to empower the right people inside the Republican Party. You know, Nancy Pelosi had a majority of five votes when she was speaker. Kevin McCarthy had majority of five votes. Nancy Pelosi passed consequential legislation, and she clearly had members within her caucus who ranged across a spectrum of political beliefs and ideology and she kept everybody together and focused on the future. He couldn’t do that. And so he paid a price, but more importantly, the country paid a price.