By Matt Dixon and Jake Traylor — NBCNews
Former President Donald Trump wants to talk revenge, and neither Sean Hannity nor Dr. Phil can stop him.
They’ve both tried.
Fresh from receiving his historic guilty verdict in New York, Trump’s public comments, including his interviews with both men, have increasingly focused on the idea of ”revenge” against his political rivals if he returns to the White House.
It is rhetoric fueled by Trump’s obsession that President Joe Biden and Democrats allegedly orchestrated a series of legal initiatives aimed at derailing his election campaign to return to the White House in November, a theory of political persecution that does not It is based on facts.
On May 31, a New York jury unanimously found him guilty of 34 counts related to falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment he made to a porn actress before the 2016 election. Neither Biden nor his Government had nothing to do with the case.
But for Trump, it’s all politics, and revenge may be necessary.
“Well, revenge takes time,” Trump said in a Thursday interview with Dr. Phil, “and sometimes revenge can be justified.”
Trump, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment, has done at least five interviews since his verdict. In all of them he has spoken of possible retaliation.
“I think there should be concern,” said Ty Cobb, who was a White House lawyer in the Trump Administration. “I see him more angry than before because now he is condemned,” he added.
The interview with Dr. Phil came a day after Trump sat down with Hannity and at times appeared to debate the idea of revenge. Trump said “they’re wrong” when the Fox News host asked him about those who say the former president will use his administration to get revenge, but at the same time, he laid out potential opportunities to do so.
[Un comentario en Facebook sobre el último juicio a Trump genera suspicacias y polémica]
“When this election is over, based on what they have done, I would have every right to go after them,” Trump said, “and it’s easy because it’s Joe Biden, and you see all the criminality, all the money that goes to his family and him. , all this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine.”
Hannity tried to steer Trump away from the idea of revenge, at one point interrupting him to try to encourage him to say that political retribution “has to stop.”
Dr. Phil also tried to get Trump to signal that he would not seek revenge if he wins in November. “That’s a big problem and I leaned heavily toward the position of saying ‘look, this is not going to help this country,’” Dr. Phil told CNN of his interview with Trump.
In other interviews and public appearances, Trump has made similar comments. On Tuesday, in a meeting with the conservative media Newsmax, Trump appeared to raise the possibility of imprisoning his political opponents if he becomes president again.
“They are taking us down a terrible, terrible path, and it very well may have to happen to them,” Trump said: “Does that mean the next president will do it to them? “That’s really the question.”
He has also suggested there would be a “breaking point” for the public if he is sentenced to prison or house arrest. Trump will be sentenced on July 11.
[Así es como Trump y sus aliados están intentando darle la vuelta a su favor al histórico veredicto de culpabilidad]
An open desire to exact revenge on political enemies is nothing new for Trump or his supporters. When he was still president in 2020, Trump took to the networks to ask “where are the arrests?”, echoing criticism from his supporters that his own attorney general, William Barr, had not arrested Biden, the former president Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
Trump also made “lock her up” a rallying cry during his 2016 campaign against Clinton, promising his supporters that he would put the former secretary of state in jail if elected.
Trump recently denied ever saying “lock her up” despite numerous videos of him saying precisely that during the 2016 election.
Trump often presents his calls for revenge as something he does on behalf of all his supporters. “I know a lot of Republicans who want retribution,” Trump told NBC News on Thursday at Mar-a-Lago, “they want to do that, let’s see what happens.”
The former president assured a crowd at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference that “for those who have been deceived and betrayed, I am their retribution.” In January, he told Fox News that he “won’t have time for retribution” if elected, comments that came just hours after he sent out a fundraising email again telling supporters “I “I AM HIS RETURN.”
But as the full weight of his legal troubles have come to light this year — and especially since his verdict — this revenge-fueled language has come to the fore.
“Even Hannity recognized that it was dangerous territory and tried to calm him down,” said Cobb, who, while in the White House, helped coordinate the internal response to Mueller’s Russia investigation. “Trump wanted nothing to do with it,” he added.
[Estos son los factores que pueden determinar la condena de Trump en julio]
Cobb said he believes the nation’s institutions would resist if Trump tried to seek politically motivated revenge, but it was nonetheless a dangerous situation.
“I think checks and balances are appropriate to resist these instincts because he has to get people to do them,” he added.
For Trump’s political base, the renewed interest in getting revenge on his political opponents has support. “I agree with him,” said Adam Radogna, a Trump supporter in Cleveland. “Obviously nothing, you know, against the law. But he’s just saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to go after you because you’re going to go after me,’” he added.
Parker Shonts, a Trump supporter in Fowlerville, Michigan, said it’s about “responsibility.” “I would say revenge is a campaign buzzword, but accountability would seem more appropriate,” he added.
Calls for revenge from Trump supporters intensified again Thursday when a federal judge ordered former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to report to prison on July 1 to begin a four-month sentence for defying the committee’s Jan. 6 subpoenas. . The news angered Trump supporters and led Bannon to issue direct threats.
“Don’t pray for me. Pray for my enemies,” Bannon said Thursday.
In response to the arrest warrant against Bannon, Trump posted on Truth Social that members of the House committee that investigated the January 6 assault on the Capitol should be brought to justice.
