Hewlett Packard CEO and Republican fundraiser Meg Whitman told The New York Times Tuesday night that she would support Hillary Clinton for president and give a “substantial” contribution to her campaign in order to stop Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump.
She described Trump as a threat to American democracy. Earlier this year, she compared him to Adolph Hitler.
“I will vote for Hillary, I will talk to my Republican friends about helping her, and I will donate to her campaign and try to raise money for her,” Whitman said in a telephone interview with the Times.
She also posted her decision on her Facebook page.
"To vote Republican out of party loyalty alone would be to endorse a candidacy that I believe has exploited anger, grievance, xenophobia and racial division. Donald Trump's demagoguery has undermined the fabric of our national character," she wrote.
Whitman told the Times that Clinton had reached out to her in a phone call about a month ago, one of the first indications that Clinton is aggressively courting Republican leaders.
Whitman said it was time for Republicans “to put country first before party.”
Whitman called called Trump "a dishonest demagogue" who would take the country "on a very dangerous journey." She also believes he has already "undermined the character of the nation."
She told the Times that she is standing by comments in which she compared Trump to Hitler and Mussolini. Those comments were reportedly made during a private gathering of Republican donors earlier this year.
“Time and again history has shown that when demagogues have gotten power or come close to getting power, it usually does not end well,” Whitman said.
Whitman, a major Republican donor and a vital link to Silicon Valley tech giants, spent $140 million of her own money on her California gubernatorial bid. The Times called her "a prized defector" for Clinton. She is also very close to former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
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