As Donald Trump takes stock of his dramatic legal difficulties, including four criminal indictments across three jurisdictions, the former president is making little effort to hide his retaliatory ambitions. National Review summarized the Republican’s eyebrow-raising comments from last week.
Former president Donald Trump recently said he’d have “no choice” but to lock up his political opponents if he wins the 2024 presidential race because his opponents are already doing the same to him and his allies. Trump’s comments came during an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Tuesday.
When the host specifically asked Trump whether he’d “lock people up” if given a second term, the former president replied, “The answer is you have no choice, because they’re doing it to us.”
It was not an off-hand comment. It was about a month ago when the Republican used his social media platform to ask, “Is this going to be the future of elections in America? Can a president order his Department of Justice to indict an opponent just prior to an election?”
Nearly two weeks later, he published a related missive, asking whether he’d be “allowed” to indict his perceived foes if he returns to the White House, adding that such an abuse is “a horrible and unconstitutional thing.”
Just two days ago, Trump returned to the subject. “The Crooked Joe Biden Campaign has thrown so many Indictments and lawsuits against me that Republicans are already thinking about what we are going to do to Biden and the Communists when it’s our turn,” he wrote. “They have started a whole new Banana Republic way of thinking about political campaigns. So cheap and dirty, but that’s where America is right now. Be careful what you wish for!”
For now, let’s put aside some of Trump’s more trivial nonsense — though I do find it amusing when Republicans capitalize “banana republic” for no reason, as if the nation is now a clothing retailer. Let’s instead focus our attention on what really matters.
In Trump’s mind, President Joe Biden is secretly pulling the prosecutorial strings behind the scenes, orchestrating his predecessor’s indictments from the shadows. There is, of course, literally zero evidence to support such a ridiculous claim, but the former president apparently envisions a scenario in which he returns to the White House and begins an identical prosecutorial campaign, using federal law enforcement as a weapon against his political foes.
Trump recently characterized this as “a horrible and unconstitutional thing,” but he added last week that he believes he now has “no choice” but to pursue such a course.
There is, however, a nagging detail the former president apparently hopes the public will forget: Trump is threatening a nightmare scenario that he already tried to implement. The Republican would have Americans believe that Biden has indicted his likely opponent during a campaign for no reason, while in reality, Trump is the one who actually did try to get his opponent indicted during a campaign for no reason.
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane.
As his first year in the White House came to an end, Trump claimed he had “absolute” control over federal law enforcement, endorsed a system in which an attorney general’s principal responsibility would be to protect a president’s interests, and urged the Justice Department to target former FBI Director James Comey.
A month later, Trump publicly questioned why his attorney general hadn’t launched more investigations into Democrats.
In August 2018, Trump published a list of perceived enemies he wanted the Justice Department to go after, pleading with the attorney general to go after the “other side.”
Three months later, The New York Times reported that Trump specifically told the White House counsel that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Comer and Hillary Clinton for crimes unknown.
In August 2020, less than three months before the presidential election, Trump publicly pressed his attorney general to target a variety of foes, including Biden and Barack Obama. A month later, the Republican echoed the rhetoric, saying Bill Barr could become “the greatest attorney general in the history of our country,” but only if he went after Trump’s perceived enemies. Two months before Election Day, Trump again declared publicly that he saw Biden as a criminal. One month before Election Day, the then-president told voters explicitly that he expected the Justice Department to arrest his foes, including the then-Democratic presidential nominee. In early October 2020, with early voting underway across much of the country, Politico published an especially memorable headline: “‘Where are all of the arrests?’: Trump demands Barr lock up his foes.” In late October 2020, as early voting continued, Trump again told the electorate that his opponent “should be in jail“ and complained that Barr hadn’t put Biden behind bars. “He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast,” the then-president said in reference to his then-attorney general. “He’s got to appoint somebody.” A day later, Trump again explicitly and publicly called on Barr to target Biden with prosecution. In other words, we’re left with a head-spinning dynamic: The politician who’s now asking, “Can a president order his Department of Justice to indict an opponent just prior to an election?” is the same politician who, as president, pressured his Justice Department to indict his opponent just prior to an election. Trump expects us to believe that he has “no choice” but to weaponize federal law enforcement and pursue charges against his political opponents, seemingly unaware of the fact that, while in office, he already tried to weaponize federal law enforcement and pursue charges against his political opponents. “They have started a whole new Banana Republic way of thinking about political campaigns,” Trump wrote over the weekend, ignoring the fact that for him, there’s nothing “new” about it. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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