President Trump's admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin is deeper than it appears, Hillary Clinton said Thursday night on The Rachel Maddow Show.
Trump likes authoritarians, Clinton said while promoting her new book What Happened, and "he doesn't just like Putin, he wants to be like Putin. He wants to have that kind of power that is largely unaccountable, unchecked." Despite his many threats over time, she's not worried about Trump trying to drum up any charges against her "because I know there's nothing there," she said, although she also has "no doubt that if he got into serious political trouble, he'd try to gin something up about me or President Obama. We are his two favorite targets. I worry it is indicative of the kind of self image that he has, not only of himself but of what the president should be able to do, and that's why it's really imperative that the Republicans in Congress rein that in."
It was "bizarre" to hear the chants of "Lock her up!" that rang out during Trump's campaign rallies, Clinton said, especially considering these rallies were "inciting violence and insulting people." It was "really unbecoming of somebody running for president," she added. "It moved into his convention, and it was being done from the platform and people were chanting it and screaming it. I thought, 'Wow, this is unlike anything I have ever read about or seen in presidential conventions. Every kind of political barrier that should have restrained this president and those urging him on was broken through."