'I certainly have some regrets': Trump’s final deputy press secretary 'knew full well the kind of man he was'

12 June 2023

MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan on Sunday grilled indicted former President Donald Trump's final Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews about what she experienced during the tumultuous termination of Trump's presidency.

On July 21st, 2022, Matthews testified before the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, recalling that Trump's staff pleaded with him to quell the violence that erupted as lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden's 332-206 Electoral College victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Matthews quit amidst the mayhem.

"I was honored to serve in the Trump administration and proud of the policies we enacted," Matthews said in a statement at the time. "As someone who worked in the halls of Congress, I was deeply disturbed by what I saw today. I'll be stepping down from my role, effective immediately. Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power."

Hasan's curiosity centered around why Matthews chose to serve under Trump in the first place:

I've gotta ask Sarah. You resigned from your position as deputy press secretary after the January 6th attack and said, your former boss is a 'threat to democracy,' which I'm glad you did and said. But Trump was accused of criminal conduct before he became president, while he was president, and obviously since he was president. And I have to ask — and I've asked this to Alyssa Farah Griffin and others who worked for Trump and have since come out against him — why couldn't you see then when you worked for him what was so clear to the rest of us? And how much regret do you have having worked for this twice-impeached-now-twice-indicted man also found liable for sexual abuse?

Matthews responded:

I think that the level of what we faced as a country with him denying the election results, and that was a fair election, and then what we faced on January 6th, which was a deadly insurrection that he helped to incite with his words. That was something that was kind of incomparable, I think, to anything else that he had done previously in his career.

Not excusing that behavior. I knew full well the kind of man he was when I went to go work for him. I certainly believed in a lot of the policies that we enacted during the Trump administration, and I'm proud of that time in being able to serve our country. But I think that I felt a duty to serve our country at the White House because I want the White House staff to be people who are of good character. And so if it wasn't someone like me or Alyssa Farah Griffin in those positions, then who would be filling them?

And that's what I'm most concerned about now, is if Donald Trump gets back into the White House, who will be staffing him there? Because I think that the type of people that he's surrounding himself with as of late clearly are encouraging his worst instincts.

Hasan dug deeper:

I understand the argument and it's a fair argument that, you know, if we are not there, there'll be worse people there, there'll be Kash Patel or whatever it is. I get that. But at the same time, do you accept the counter-argument that by being there — knowing the man he was to quote you, you know, this is a man who had called Mexicans rapists and, you know, kidnap children from their parents, told Black congresswoman to go back to where they came from — that you were complicit in that as well? That you, you, that you are gonna have to carry that around, that you did the right thing in the end, but there was a period where you were working for a man who you knew was just off the chart?

Matthews replied:

I certainly have some regrets. And you know, I think as a spokesperson for him it was a difficult job because you're not always gonna agree with a hundred percent of the things he said. And obviously, as you outlined, some of those things were very offensive to people. But, he also did have seventy-four million people vote for him in the last election. So clearly his policies were resonating with Americans. And as I've said, I'm proud of some of the policies that we enacted while I was there.

Watch below or at this link.

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