Ex-Aide Warns Key Check On Donald Trump Will Be Gone In Second Term

Sarah Matthews, a former press aide to Donald Trump who has become a vocal critic of her onetime boss, on Wednesday said staffers in a potential second Trump White House would lose one key way to restrain him.

Matthews told CNN’s Jim Acosta that “competency and experience” will be “out the window” if Trump wins the 2024 election and stacks his administration — as he has vowed to — with loyalists and sycophants.

“It’s concerning to think there won’t be people I believe of good character staffing him this go around,” said Matthews. “You’re not going to have the John Kellys and Mark Espers who would push back on him. Instead, it’s going to be a bunch of yes men and women who will do and say what he pleases.”

During Trump’s first term, Matthews said staffers “were able to dissuade him from a lot of bad policies by saying, ‘Oh, well this could hurt your reelection chances.’”

But “that won’t be a concern” for Trump if he’s reelected, she warned.

“So I think that you’re not really going to be able to steer him off these bad policies such as family separation, like we saw in his first term, things like that I believe he would go forward with because he wanted to do that in his first term,” Matthews added.

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