Rachel Maddow Predicts Trump Will Try to Install Family Member as Successor So They Can Keep ‘Ill-Gotten Gains’

Rather than having a normal election, MS NOW star Rachel Maddow is betting on President Donald Trump trying to install one of his kids as the next president — even if he has to do it “by force,” she claimed.

Maddow made the big accusation during a Sunday interview on The Poynter Institute podcast.

The cable news veteran argued Trump has been so busy ripping off the American public during his second term — which she described as his “kleptokratic phase” — that he will have no choice but to make one of his own kids the next president, if only to cover up the family’s financial crimes. But Maddow said that’s how all “dictators” operate.

“Once they’ve sort of started stealing that much money from the public trust, it becomes, typically, important for guys like that to ensure that somebody from their family assumes power after them, simply so the family can keep their ill-gotten gains, and not have them either taken or seized as part of a prosecution,” Maddow said.

She continued, “If you are a corrupt leader who’s using your hold on power to basically shake down your country for hundreds of millions and/or billions of dollars, you know that the carousel stops turning at some point.”

Maddow did not guess which of Trump’s kids he would peg as his heir apparent. But she said Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Barron Trump, and even Trump’s sons-in-law are all aboard his “kleptokratic train.”

“If he wants them to not end up, you know, in jail or prosecuted or having their ill-gotten gains investigated and potentially taken over, he’s gotta make sure that the next president is also a Trump,” Maddow continued. “And so that’s why you see so many sons of dictators become dictators around the world.”

Maddow shared her prediction after some have questioned Trump’s net worth increasing by billions of dollars since he retook office. Some critics have also called out the Trump family’s push into the crypto world, while others have bashed the president for giving shoutouts to companies like Dell, which he has invested in.

If and when Trump tries to topple the government and force one of his kids into power, Maddow said it won’t be pretty.

“I think that’s something that would effectively have to be done kind of by force,” she said, before she started to laugh at her own prediction. “I don’t imagine someone willingly voting for Eric — or the other one, or the other one.”

Watch above.

Jason Cohen contributed to this story.

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