Here's What Rachel Maddow Is Worried Trump Will Do If Elected

Leah Barkoukis reporting for Townhall 

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is concerned about former President Donald Trump winning the 2024 election, but not for the reasons typically put forth by those on the left.

On Monday, the liberal host told CNN she is “worried about the country broadly if we put someone in power who is openly avowing that he plans to build camps to hold millions of people, and to ‘root out’ what he’s described in subhuman terms as his ‘enemy from within.'” 

Maddow, who was referencing Trump’s plan to carry out the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, added:  “For that matter, what convinces you that these massive camps he’s planning are only for migrants? So, yes, I’m worried about me — but only as much as I’m worried about all of us.”

Last month, TIME magazine asked the 45th president about his mass deportation plan, and whether he'd build new detention facilities. 

Would that include building new migrant detention camps?

Trump: We wouldn't have to do very much of that. Because we'll be bringing them out of the country. We're not leaving them in the country. We're bringing them out. It’s been done before.

Will you build new ones?

Trump: And it was done by Obama in a form of jails, you know, prisons. And I got blamed for that for four months. And then people realized that was done by him, not by me.

So are you ruling out that you would build new migrant detention camps?

Trump: No, I would not rule out anything. But there wouldn't be that much of a need for them, because of the fact that we're going to be moving them out. We're going to bring them back from where they came.

I ask because your close aide and adviser Stephen Miller said that part of what it would take to carry out this deportation operation would include new migrant detention camps. 

Trump: It’s possible that we’ll do it to an extent but we shouldn't have to do very much of it, because we're going to be moving them out as soon as we get to it. And we'll be obviously starting with the criminal element. And we're going to be using local police because local police know them by name, by first name, second name, and third name. I mean, they know them very well. (TIME)

Maddow isn't alone in her concern. Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said recently she “wouldn’t be surprised if this guy (Trump) threw me in jail.”