Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) accused President Trump of acting like a “thug” who is trying to “get rid” of governmental checks and balances by firing or forcing out top FBI officials and federal prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases.

“It’s a cleansing,” Crockett told MSNBC’s Alex Witt. “When Democrats got out there and we said that our democracy was really at risk, people were like, ‘Democrats, you’re out there, you’re gaslighting. It’s not our democracy.’ Well, he did say he’d be a dictator on Day 1.”

But Trump is “doing more” than just talking, Crockett said. 

“We talked about Project 2025. We talked about the consolidation of power. We talked about how he wanted to be a king. We talked about, in a democratic republic, that is not what it is,” Crockett said. “We have some sort of checks and balances, and he is doing everything that he can to get rid of those checks and balance. The DOJ [Department of Justice] and the people that he’s going after were simply doing their jobs.”

Crockett, who served as a national co-chair for the Harris-Walz presidential campaign, has been a vocal critic of Trump and his allies.

Crockett also expressed little sympathy toward voters who supported the president in his campaign. 

“The problem is that Americans thought that it was OK to take a full-fledged criminal and make him the president of the United States, and then they want to act aghast when he does criminal things,” she said. 

“Let me tell you: We have a thug in charge of the United States. And if we don’t wake up, we may not have a United States, because right now he has only been successful in being a divider in chief.”