In an interview with CNN, Hillary Clinton compared supporters of former President Donald Trump to a “cult” and said that “maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members.”

“Sadly, so many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists, take their marching orders from Donald Trump, who has no credibility left by any measure,” Clinton told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Thursday night. “He’s only in it for himself.”

Seizing on Clinton’s comments, the Trump campaign issued a statement Thursday night, saying “President Trump has said countless times that they are only coming after him, because he stands in their way from coming after you — and Hillary Clinton just confirmed that to be true. Tens of millions of Americans will reject the Democrat Party’s re-education camp agenda in November 2024 when we make Donald Trump the 47th President of the United States.”

Clinton, who ran against Trump and lost in 2016, painted the 2024 election as a choice between two vastly different visions for America. “One will wreck our democracy. One violates the law on a regular basis. One appeals to the worst in our collective psyche. The other gets things done,” she said. “Why is that a hard choice?”

Trump continues to lead in polls of Republican voters, and the former president also polls well against President Biden. Clinton said Biden has done a “fantastic job” in his first term, pointing to his negotiating drug prices for Medicare recipients and legislative victories like the infrastructure spending act. “But if you don’t want to be for him on the merits, the way I am, be for him because the alternative could end our democracy,” she said. “And I don’t say that lightly.”

Asked about the historic vote that forced Rep. Kevin McCarthy from his job as Speaker of the House, Clinton said partisanship had changed since she was a senator. “There wasn’t this little tail of extremism waving, you know, wagging the dog of the Republican Party as it is today.”

Clinton said Republicans turning on McCarthy for working with Democrats to pass a short-term funding bill and avert a government shutdown showed that the GOP is in “an absolute hostage situation with its most extreme members.”

“He was not continuing to be captive to the far-right extremists. So they toppled him. It was a very small number as you look at the vote. But now we’re reaping the consequences of their misbehavior.”

“At some point, there needs to be a backlash against the control that this small group of extremists have. And I don’t know who will lead that, but let’s hope whoever becomes the new speaker will.”