Donald Trump’s vow to seek retribution against his political opponents if he wins the 2024 election is no idle threat, argued New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
Trump played down his oft-repeated promise to seek revenge in his interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker that aired on Sunday’s episode of “Meet the Press.”
Haberman, though, wasn’t buying it.
“I think that former President Trump has been quite clear, and despite him saying to Kristen, ‘No, no, I don’t do that,’ in terms of seeking retribution against his enemies, to your point, he did try to do that when he was president,” she said on CNN’s “Inside Politics.” “I think that people should not assume that that would not continue.”
The former president “has been quite clear that he is looking for payback, his allies and advisers have been quite clear that he is looking for payback,” she noted. “I would take him seriously given that he’s openly talking about eroding Justice Department independence and that norm and appointing a special prosecutor against the Bidens on day one.”
Trump in March told supporters at a Conservative Political Action Conference that he’d be their “retribution” if he won back the White House.
Elsewhere in Trump’s interview with Welker, he dodged a question on watching the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection unfold on television, swerved on abortion policies, falsely blamed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the U.S. Capitol riot and said it was “my decision” to challenge the 2020 election result.
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