Former president Donald TrumpTrump’s “worst instincts” are leading his supporters to a “very, very dark place,” according to Elizabeth Neumann, a former Trump administration official.

Neumann, who has held several high-level positions at Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during Trump’s presidency, is one of several former Trump officials who have recently issued warnings about the Republican candidate as he seeks to return to the White House by defeating the vice president Kamala Harris in November.

Neumann said MSNBC Friday host Katy Tur in an interview believes Trump supporters are giving him an unwarranted “pass” and rejecting authoritarian remarks that should be taken seriously, while adding that the way the ex-president behaves “behind closed doors” would “scare” most people. Americans.

“You have to take what he says seriously,” Neumann said. “When he says he wants to be ‘a dictator from day one,’ that’s actually what he means. He says it jokingly; he says it in a way that makes people give him a pass. Don’t give him a pass.”

“Behind closed doors, his worst instincts would frighten the average American,” she added. “He has no humanity, no decency, no respect… Instead, (he) is simply willing to push people aside to achieve his goals. He is very dangerous indeed.”

Neumann said Trump’s potential return to power “poses a threat” to freedom and the “American way of life,” arguing that the election is less about policy differences than choosing a fit candidate to serve. a position.

“It’s about whether we put someone in office who has the character and the competence to take the oath of office,” Neumann said. “He doesn’t care about the Constitution. He doesn’t care about respecting the rule of law. These are just constraints for him that he is more than happy to ignore and give in sending.”

“(Trump is) very happy, actually, to exhibit the worst instincts that we’ve seen in history when we put people with these authoritarian tendencies in positions of power,” she said. “This leads to violence, destruction and certainly a loss of freedom.

News week contacted the Trump campaign by email for comment Friday evening.

John Kelly, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general who served as White House chief of staff and DHS secretary during Trump’s term, warned earlier this week that he had personally saw the former president claim that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler “did good things” and offered praise for “Hitler’s generals.”

Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, also called Trump a “fascist” and confirmed his previous account that the president referred to American soldiers killed or injured in combat as “losers and suckers” while he was in power.

Asset responded to Kelly’s claims calling out a “lowlife” who simply “invented” his memories in a Truth Social article, diagnosing his former chief of staff with “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

More than a dozen former Trump administration officials, including Neumann, signed a letter this week supporting elder Kelly’s remarks about the ex-president, writing that they “applaud General Kelly for highlighting in great detail the danger of a second Trump term.”

Neumann, who was a senior adviser to Kelly during his time at DHS, said during his interview with MSNBC on Friday that it was “important” for Kelly and others to issue a “warning” to voters because Trump is ” unfit to serve.”

“(Trump is) dangerous, unfit to serve, and I think he desires to be authoritarian,” she said. “He’s leading this country, a certain part of this country, to a very, very dark place. And that’s why it’s important to me and to people like John Kelly and others, in an attempt to sound this warning.”