'Felt like a hostage video': Ex-White House aide shreds Bill Barr's defense of Trump
Former Attorney General Bill Barr's "about-face" from one of Donald Trump's most vocal critics to political endorser spurred outrage from one of his former colleagues Monday.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former president's communications director, shredded the Republican's stated reasons for backing Trumps' presidential reelection bid during an interview with Kaitlan Collins, the CNN host who quizzed Barr about his endorsement during on-air sit-down interview Friday.
"Honestly, the interview felt like a hostage video," Griffin mused to Collins as she recapped it. "I noticed that he was not regularly making eye contact with you, especially when he was making some of the more bizarre claims like gas stoves. It felt like he was kinda clinging to some right-wing talking points that nobody is turning out this election because of electric vehicles or gas stoves, rather than talking about issues that he knows are fundamental."
During the sit-down, Barr knocked President Joe Biden implementing a “collectivist socialist agenda” by nixing gas stoves and force-feeding electric vehicles down Americans' craws.
This defense didn't pass muster with Griffin.
"Donald Trump was going to fire his attorney general had he not stepped down," Griffin recalled. "iI's frankly disgraceful that he's doing this about-face now."
Barr, a lifelong Republican, served as Trump's second attorney general from 2019 to 2020 before tendering his resignation over the 45th president's 2020 election interference claims.
On Monday, Griffin said she was shocked by Barr's claim that he did not take seriously Trump's death demands for the person who leaked information about his hiding in his White House bunker during the George Floyd protests.
"Whoever did that, they should be charged with treason!" Trump is reported to have said. "They should be executed!"
Barr told Collins Trump was just having a tantrum.
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“I remember him being very mad about that," Barr said. "I actually don’t remember him saying, 'executing'. But I wouldn’t dispute it, you know?"
Barr added, “The president would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would have actually carried it out."
Not so, Griffin said.
"I knew of the one [execution demand] instance I personally witnessed, I had heard of other examples secondhand but he seemed to dismiss it and then goes into this line of like, 'Oh, don't take him literally!'" Griffin said.
"Well, we didn't take them literally when he wanted to steal the election or one hand cited a mob to go to the Capitol and it turned violent," she said. "It's time that people start taking Donald Trump much more literally at his word."