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Alyssa Farah Griffin, a one-time White House staffer under former President Donald Trump, suggested on CNN Tuesday morning that her ex-boss's influence is causing "brain rot" in the United States.
The Context:
Griffin, a co-host on The View, previously worked as a staffer in various positions throughout the Trump administration, starting out as a press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence and assistant to Trump himself before making the leap to press secretary for the Pentagon. She ultimately ended her tenure as White House strategic communications director.
Griffin left the administration in December 2020, one month after Trump lost his reelection bid to Joe Biden. Later, in the wake of the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, she publically condemned her former boss for his hand in allegedly inciting his supporters to carry out the attack. Since then, she has consistently been an outspoken critic of Trump and his continued influence on the American political sphere.
What We Know:
The former White House staffer made an appearance on CNN to discuss Trump and his reaction to the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The dissident was recently reported to have died in a Siberian prison while serving time on contested charges. While unconfirmed, many commentators have called his death a killing ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After remaining quiet on the matter initially, Trump, long criticized for his soft stances on Putin, released a statement about Navalny's death that made no reference to the Russian president, instead attempting to compare the dissident's struggles with his own recent political agenda.
Appearing on CNN prior to Griffin, Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, suggested that the former president has no core policy beliefs and only cares about what is best for himself. In response, Griffin suggested that Trump's recent comments about Navalny fit his pattern of affection for "strongmen" leaders and that his stances were leading to "rot" among the American right-wing.
"I slightly disagree with John Bolton here," Griffin said. "I do think he doesn't have core policy viewpoints. I don't know that I think he has a strong moral compass in any manner, really, but he is drawn to personalities, and he's drawn to people who he likes the way they speak, he likes that's the way they lead, and they present.
"And again, that is why he likes strongmen. He praises [Chinese leader] Xi [Jinping], he praises [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un, he sees them as strong leaders who challenge their people and try to rule with an iron fist. That does resonate with him."
She continued: "I think that this comes down to the fact he's always hesitated to criticize the Kremlin. He's always hesitated to criticize Putin. And this goes a bit deeper. There is a brain rot and a moral rot on some of the American right, right now. When you see someone like Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House, somebody who would have been a huge NATO proponent, basically comparing Alexei Navalny's death to the persecution of Donald Trump, we are very far gone."
Views
As Griffin mentioned during her CNN appearance, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich weighed in on Navalny's death and also made the comparison between him and Trump.
"Navalnys death in prison is a brutal reminder that jailing your political opponents is inhumane and a violation of every principle of a free society," Gingrich wrote in a post to X, formerly Twitter.
"Watch the Biden Administration speak out against Putin and his jailing of his leading political opponent while Democrats in four different jurisdictions try to turn President Trump into an American Navalny. The hypocrisy and corruption of the left is astonishing."
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, the only other major candidate left in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race besides Trump, criticized the former president for failing to call out Putin.
"Donald Trump could have condemned [Russian President] Vladimir Putin for being a murderous thug," Haley posted on X. "Trump could have praised Navalny's courage. Instead, he stole a page from liberals' playbook, denouncing America and comparing our country to Russia."
What Comes Next
Trump remains the overwhelming favorite to secure the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, despite his mounting legal battles and his divisive treatment of Putin and Russia.
In the wake of Navalny's death, his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has continued to call out the Russian government, claiming that they refuse to release his body for fear of what it will reveal about the nature of his death.
Update 2/20/24, 12:16 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
About the writer
Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more