Clinton: GOP displays 'too many characteristics' of authoritarianism

Former secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that the current Republican Party displays “too many characteristics” of authoritarianism. 

“The problem is, if you go through the hallmarks of authoritarian regimes, you see too many characteristics unfortunately on our Republican side,” Clinton told "The View."

“My most fervent hope is that Republicans themselves will begin to reject all of that verbally, vocally, in their voting, and kind of reconstitute the Republican Party to where it used to be and not the party of Trump, which I think is very dangerous to the country,” she added.

Her comments come amid a GOP backlash to President Biden saying last month that the philosophy of the former President Trump-aligned MAGA wing of the Republican party was “like semi-fascism.”

Clinton also criticized the Republican Party in an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, telling the GOP to “grow a backbone” and “stand up to this guy.” 

While Clinton told CBS that she has no plans to ever run for president again, she said she will do everything she can to ensure the next president “respects our democracy and the rule of law and upholds our institutions," adding that Trump does not fit the description.

Clinton’s name recently returned to public discourse after several Republicans compared the classified documents recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence to Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State. Clinton hit back at the comparisons, noting that she had no classified emails on the server.

Clinton’s comments on the GOP echo the case that Biden has been making ahead of November's midterm elections, arguing that Trump's sway over the party poses an existential threat to democracy.

“Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology,” the president said last week in Philadelphia.

“But there’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country.”