As Donald Trump faces growing scrutiny over his increasingly authoritarian and violent rhetoric, Fox News host Sean Hannity gave his longtime friend a chance to assure the American people that he wouldn\u2019t abuse power or seek retribution if he wins a second term. But instead of offering a perfunctory answer brushing off the warnings, Trump stoked the fire. \u201cExcept for day one,\u201d the GOP front-runner said Tuesday night before a live audience in Davenport, Iowa. \u201cI want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.\u201d And in case anyone missed it, he reenacted the exchange.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love this guy,\u201d Trump said of Hannity. \u201cHe says, You\u2019re not going to be a dictator, are you?\u2019 I said: No, no, no, other than day one. We\u2019re closing the border, and we\u2019re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I\u2019m not a dictator.'\u201d Trump has a long history of making inflammatory proclamations that spark outrage from detractors and generate a stream of headlines, without ever coming to fruition. Often they are made in a tongue-in-cheek manner that allows Trump\u2019s allies to claim he was joking and cite the backlash as another example of a candidate skilled at baiting an out-of-touch press that takes him far too literally.<\/p>\n
Trump campaign aides said Thursday that the former president was simply trying to trigger the left and the media with his dictator comment, while also seeking to focus attention on the influx of migrants at the border and stubborn inflation, two vulnerabilities for President Joe Biden heading into the 2024 general election. But the consequences of Trump\u2019s rhetoric have been made all too clear, after he refused to accept the results of the 2020 election and a mob of his supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of Biden\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n
The former president, who has long expressed regard for authoritarian leaders and the power they wield, is now vowing vengeance and retribution as he outlines a second-term agenda marked by an unprecedented expansion of executive power, unparalleled interference in the justice system, and a massive purge of civil servants. Indeed, hours before his remarks were aired, a longtime ally who is widely expected to serve in a top national security role if Trump returns to the White House vowed to target journalists in a second Trump term.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,\u201d said Kash Patel, even though numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even Trump\u2019s own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the fraud he alleges. Biden and other critics have seized on Trump\u2019s comments, painting him as a threat to democracy as they seek to turn the 2024 election into another referendum on the former president instead of Biden. Cognizant of the risks, Trump\u2019s campaign has tried to distance itself from Patel\u2019s statement as well as headline-grabbing policy plans proposed by several outside groups staffed by longtime Trump allies, with top aides issuing a statement last month saying the groups did not speak for the campaign.<\/p>\n
Trump, too, has tried to turn the tables on Biden, who has increasingly argued the former president poses a fundamental danger to the country. In a speech in Iowa this month, Trump insisted it is really Biden who is the true \u201cdestroyer\u201d of democracy, citing the four criminal indictments he is facing as politically motivated efforts to damage his campaign. It\u2019s an argument Trump and his campaign plan to continue to make heading into the 2024 general election.<\/p>\n
The Biden campaign\u2019s attack, said Trump senior adviser Jason Miller, \u201cis a clear sign that the Democrats believe their only possible pathway to victory is to go scorched earth on President Trump.\u201d Despite Democrats\u2019 attempts \u201cto make outlandish statements about what a future Trump term could look like,\u201d Miller said, there is now a reference point: \u201cFour years of President Trump in the White House, and he never did any of the types of things that Joe Biden is currently doing to him.\u201d But Trump\u2019s own words are clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today, I add, I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,\u201d he said in March 2023. In the months since, Trump has repeatedly and explicitly vowed to use the Justice Department to target his enemies in a dramatic break from the long-standing, post-Watergate tradition of independence. \u201cI will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, the entire Biden crime family, and all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders and our country itself,\u201d he said in a June video.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Univision, he went even further. \u201cIf I happen to be president and I see somebody who\u2019s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, Go down and indict them,'\u201d he said. Last December, he mused about circumventing the Constitution, arguing that the election fraud he alleges \u201callows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.\u201d He has taken an especially hostile approach to the press, vowing to \u201crout the fake news media,\u201d calling reporters \u201cTHE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!\u201d and saying outlets like NBC News and MSNBC should be investigated for treason.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s extensive policy plans also rely on a dramatic expansion of executive power. He wants to strip tens of thousands of career federal workers of their civil service protections, has vowed new ideological tests for those entering the country and has talked about increasing the military\u2019s role on domestic soil, including sending the National Guard to the border and to cities like Chicago to tackle crime. He has warned that the gravest threats to the nation come \u201cnot from abroad, but from within,\u201d has called for expanded use of the death penalty while praising countries that rely on \u201cquick\u201d trials and extrajudicial killings, and has said looters should be shot.<\/p>\n
He has continued to praise authoritarian leaders like China\u2019s Xi Jinping, Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orb\u00e1n and Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin, while dehumanising his enemies as \u201cscum\u201d and \u201cthugs\u201d who \u201clive like vermin.\u201d Aides argue the former president did not enact some of his most extreme campaign promises, like jailing his then-rival Hillary Clinton or enacting \u201ca total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,\u201d though he did try to ban foreign nationals from a handful of Muslim-majority countries. They note his campaign operation this time around has been widely praised as more disciplined and professional than his previous efforts \u2013 a sign of what could be to come.<\/p>\n
But if he wins again, Trump is expected to face far fewer guardrails, including an administration filled with loyalists now experienced in wielding federal power, fewer rivals in Congress and more appointees across the courts. Quentin Fulks, the No. 2 official on Biden\u2019s reelection campaign, pushed back at Trump\u2019s attempts to turn the issue back on Biden and said there is no comparison between the men. Biden, he said, is not standing at the presidential podium \u201csaying that he\u2019s going to round up his political enemies or use the government to go after his political enemies.\u201d He said it was imperative for Democrats to \u201ccall out this rhetoric when we see it and make sure the American people really know what\u2019s at stake.\u201d Meanwhile, Ken Cuccinelli, a top immigration official in Trump\u2019s administration who now leads a super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president, called the former president\u2019s dictator remarks \u201cprovocative\u201d and vintage Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I think he\u2019s trying to needle everybody? Yes, I do. He enjoys doing that,\u201d Cuccinelli said. \u201cDoes it help improve America? No, it doesn\u2019t. And he doesn\u2019t care about that because his first concern is Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Donald Trump faces growing scrutiny over his increasingly authoritarian and violent rhetoric, Fox News host Sean Hannity gave his\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":1682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[4635,474,3305,168,3144,717,679,4636,101,2242,3530],"class_list":["post-16485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-authoritarian-rhetoric","tag-campaign","tag-dictator","tag-donald-trump","tag-florida-gov-ron-desantis","tag-fox-news","tag-january-6-riots","tag-jason-miller","tag-joe-biden","tag-sean-hannity","tag-us-2024-presidential-elections"],"reading_time":"7 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}