The day before President Donald Trump
addressed Congress, The Washington Post released an interview
with Chelsea Manning in which she described America under Trump as
“another prison.”
Earlier this month, Manning announced
her run as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in Maryland.
The 30-year-old former Army private
came out transgender on the day she was sentenced to serve 35 years
in prison for disclosing classified materials to WikiLeaks. Before
leaving the White House, President Barack Obama commuted all but four
months of Manning's remaining prison term. She served nearly 7 years
of her 35-year sentence.
(Related: Showtime
to broadcast Chelsea Manning documentary XY
Chelsea.)
“This is not the home I expected to
come home to,” Manning
said. “This is another prison. … I need to figure out how
we're going to survive it.”
If elected to the Senate, Manning would
become the first openly transgender person to be elected to either
house of Congress. She told the Post that she was running to
replace incumbent Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat, because the
“establishment needs to be challenged, and it needs to be
challenged in their footholds and in the places where they feel
safe.”