(NewsNation) — A woman facing charges of making repeated death threats against President Donald Trump spoke with NewsNation at a protest outside the White House just days before her arrest.
Nathalie Rose Jones, 50, of Lafayette, Indiana, faces charges including threatening to kill, kidnap or harm the president, and transmitting threats across state lines, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said.
Before she was arrested and charged, Jones told NewsNation she was protesting the government’s handling of COVID-19 and criticized the administration as “authoritarian” and “fascist.” She said Trump’s policies cost lives by undermining vaccines and accused the president of failing to protect victims of violence.
“We aren’t going to have a plastic regime just killing patients en masse, driving them away from their simple and effective health care. It’s unconscionable. It’s not a political issue,” she said. “This should be health care. It never should have been made partisan. It’s a tragedy for the United States of America. This regime has to go, the whole administration.”
Jones said now is “not the time to deploy the guard,” referring to the Trump administration’s federal takeover of the nation’s capital.
“I was in the reserve, but you do not deploy the military against the American people,” she said. “We will not be suppressed. We will not exist in this authoritarian regime. We will not accept fascism.”
According to court filings, an Instagram account linked to Jones posted threats in early August calling Trump a “terrorist” and labeling his administration a “dictatorship.” On Facebook, Jones allegedly escalated her rhetoric, writing she was willing to “kill this POTUS” and describing in detail how she would do it.
Jones was interviewed by the Secret Service twice. During the first interview, she reportedly admitted she would take Trump’s life if given the opportunity and said she had a bladed weapon to carry out her “mission.” At the second interview, held after the protest at the White House, authorities said Jones admitted making the threats but denied any intent to act.
Jones was arrested shortly afterward and confirmed she owned the accounts from which the posts were made, authorities said. The Secret Service is investigating the case.