Meg Whitman, a Hewlett Packard executive and Republican fund-raiser, said Tuesday that she would support Hillary Clinton for president and give a substantial contribution to her campaign in order to stop Donald J. Trump, whom she berated as a threat to American democracy.
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, Ms. Whitman said in a telephone interview.
She revealed that Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic nominee, had reached out to her in a phone call about a month ago, one of the first indications that Mrs. Clinton is aggressively courting Republican leaders. While acknowledging she diverged from Mrs. Clinton on many policy issues, Ms. Whitman said it was time for Republicans to put country first before party.
Using remarkably blunt language, she argued that the election of Mr. Trump, whom she called a dishonest demagogue, could lead the country on a very dangerous journey. She noted that democracies had seldom lasted longer than a few hundred years and warned that those who say that it cant happen here are being naïve.
Ms. Whitman also said she absolutely stood by her comments at a private gathering of Republican donors this year comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler and Mussolini, explaining that dictators often come to office through democratic means.
Time and again history has shown that when demagogues have gotten power or come close to getting power, it usually does not end well, Ms. Whitman said. She asserted that Mr. Trump had already undermined the character of the nation.
A billionaire who spent $140 million of her own money in a failed bid for governor of California in 2010, Ms. Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay, is a prized defector for Mrs. Clinton. She is close to Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee; has deep ties to the countrys business elite; and is a rare female Republican executive in Silicon Valley.
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Ms. Whitman, who said she would remain a Republican, brings with her a considerable network of contributors, some of whom she said were open to giving to Mrs. Clinton. She said she was willing to campaign for Mrs. Clinton, said she would do her best to gather checks for her campaign and indicated she would personally give to both Mrs. Clinton and her affiliated super PACs. An aide to Ms. Whitman said she would personally give at least an amount in the mid-six figures to the Clinton effort.
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I dont agree with her on very many issues, she added, but she would be a much better president than Donald Trump.
