Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA), a survivor of the Jonestown massacre, went all the way out there as she compared Donald Trump to the infamous cult leader, Jim Jones.
CNN’s Brian Stelter held a Reliable Sources segment on Sunday that focused on the international perspectives on the former president’s political movement, including the view from critics that his following is a “cult.” Speier was shot while she was on an investigative mission to Jonestown decades ago, so Stelter asked for her thoughts, and she said “there is no question that you could compare” Jones and Trump as “merchants of deceit.”
You look at Donald Trump, a charismatic leader, who was able to continue to talk in terms that appealed to those who were disaffected, disillusions and who were looking for something, much like those who became part of Jim Jones’ congregation, the Peoples Temple. They were lost souls, and the only difference between Jim Jones and Donald Trump is the fact that we now have social media. So all these people can find themselves in ways that they couldn’t find themselves before.
Spier said she was reluctant to compare Trump to Jones, but after the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the parallels become more blatant to her. She also accused the GOP of “cult-like behavior” after seeing how many people in the party backed Trump’s baseless election lies that fueled the crowd on January 6th.
“The big lie has now been embraced by the majority of members on the Republican side in the House of Representatives. They are now paralyzed to speak truth,” Speier said. “They know that the election was not stolen. They know that it was held properly. They know that there was not massive fraud, and yet they will continue to mouth those words because their leader, Donald Trump, wants to hear them.”
Stelter predicted Trump’s media allies will attack Speier for branding Trump voters as “cultists,” so he asked the congresswoman if she differentiates among the former president’s supporters. She answered by saying Trump voters “are on all different levels,” and while she doesn’t put every one of them in the same category, she stood by her view that Trump’s rioting supporters at the Capitol “are members of a cult.”
Watch above, via CNN.
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