These 3 ex-Trump staffers are fighting to sink his campaign
In the 2020 presidential election, a long list of well-known conservatives — from former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) to ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina to GOP activist Cindy McCain — endorsed Democrat Joe Biden over Republican Donald Trump. Now, four years later, President Biden is again hoping for some conservative support as he prepares for what it likely to be a Biden/Trump rematch.
Three conservatives who served in Trump's administration but are now in the Never Trump camp are Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson and Sarah Matthews. According to the Washington Post's Kara Voght, they have joined forces and are hoping that other conservatives will join them in opposing Trump.
"They represent the last wave of the anti-Trump movement — what you might call Now-Never Trumpers, or, maybe, the Better-Late-Than-Never Trumpers," Voght explains in an article published on February 27. "They're conservatives who were for Trump before they were against him, and for whom the former president's reckless behavior after losing the 2020 election was a breaking point."
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In the Trump Administration, Griffin served as White House communications director, while Matthews was deputy press secretary. And Hutchinson, known for her testimony for the January 6 Select Committee, was an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (now a co-defendant in Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' election interference/RICO case against Trump).
Hutchinson, according to Voght, plans to vote for Biden. Griffin, meanwhile, has ruled out the possibility of voting for Trump but hasn't committed to endorsing Biden.
Griffin told the Post, "Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, and I will never support him…. If Joe Biden remains where he's been on aid to Ukraine and support for Israel, it'll be much easier to get there."
Matthews is supporting former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primary but says she will vote for Biden if Trump is the Republican nominee.
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Matthews told the Post, "We can survive bad policy from a second Biden Administration, but I don't think we can survive a second Trump term in terms of our democracy."
The Post interviewed some other conservatives who served in the Trump Administration but plan to vote against him in 2024.
Attorney Ty Cobb told the Post, "If the time comes and a vote for Joe is required to stop Trump, then I'd grudgingly vote for Biden."
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton, however, has ruled out voting for either Biden or Trump.
Bolton told the Post that if Biden and Trump are the nominees, "I'll do what I did in 2020: I wrote in the name of a conservative Republican."
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Read the Washington Post's full article at this link (subscription required).
