'Making a joke of our institutions': Dem blasts Trump for trying to 'emulate Vladimir Putin'
Some of President-elect Donald Trump's picks for his incoming administration are typical conservatives who are almost certain to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2025, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) for secretary of state and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to head the U.S. Interior Department.
But many of Trump's ultra-MAGA picks are way more controversial, including former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (an ex-Democrat) for Director of National Intelligence and Fox News star Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. And many medical experts are warning that anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be quite dangerous if confirmed to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
During a Tuesday, November 26 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York) warned that Trump's more extreme picks could inflict long-term damage on the United States — from national security to health care.
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Meeks angrily told MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire, "He is making a joke of the institutions of the United States of America — who we are really, our guts of a country. What makes us different than most, and all the democratic countries, is the institutions. And that's what he wants to destroy: The institutions."
The Democratic congressman warned that the U.S. will suffer greatly if Trump succeeds in destroying or undermining the United States' system of checks and balances. And Meeks noted that Trump openly admires far-right authoritarians like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Meeks told Lemire, "The Founding Fathers, for a reason, said, 'We don't want a king. We don't want a dictator.' But what Donald Trump wants to do — just check it out as facts — he wants to emulate Vladimir Putin or Viktor Orbán. These are individuals who, if you go against them — some of them, in Russia, they fall out of a window. So, that is what we're dealing with here."
The congressman noted that in Germany during the 1930s, Adolf Hitler did not come to power via an outright coup d'état or golpe de estado — but was voted into office.
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"Hitler was elected democratically," a frustrated Meeks told Lemire. "Democratically... And it's going to be up to the Republican senators and the Republicans in the House to stand up and not to be complicit with the moves and the actions of Donald J. Trump."
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