Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an audience in Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday the Trump administration “has thrown in its lot with the autocrats.”
“Autocracy is on the march,” Clinton said, apparently at the World Forum on the Future of Democracy, Tech and Humankind.
“And we now have a government in the United States that has thrown in its lot with the autocrats, which has made a choice to support those who wage war, not peace, who have given enormous power to the men who control the information flow in our world, who have all pledged allegiance to the continuation of algorithms that not only addict us, but poison us with hatred and fear.”
Clinton’s comments seemed to touch on President Trump’s alliance with Elon Musk and friendly relations with other tech titans such as Mark Zuckerberg, who attended his inauguration.
Musk has become a bogeyman for Democrats, who say his cuts to government are slipshod and putting Americans at risk. His efforts to gut agencies including the U.S. Agency for International Development have been paused in court, and some courts have forced the Trump administration to rehire thousands of terminated government employees.
Clinton’s remarks came on the same day that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a call, during which Trump extolled the promise of U.S. and Russian economic cooperation.
Putin rejected a U.S. proposal for an unconditional ceasefire in the Ukraine war, which Kyiv backed last week. But he agreed to a more limited ceasefire on energy infrastructure, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also endorsed in a call with Trump on Wednesday.
Trump’s critics worry he will ultimately pressure Ukraine to accept some of Russia’s maximalist demands for a peace deal, such as ceding swathes of territory.
Clinton lost the 2016 election to Trump, and has remained a frequent target of the Republican leader in the years since.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
