Trump Is Thirsting for Revenge. Some of His Allies Try to Claim It’s Fake News
Donald Trump has had payback on the brain since he was convicted on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in New York last week. He told Sean Hannity on Wednesday that he would have “every right” to weaponize the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies should he win in November. He told Dr. Phil a day later that “sometimes revenge can be justified,” with the interview airing hours after he called for members of the House Jan. 6 Committee to be indicted. This all comes amid months of the former president teasing his revenge fantasies in public. Rolling Stone has been reporting on his team’s very real plans to go after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Special Counsel Jack Smith, and others for over a year.
And yet, some Trump allies and right-wing media figures are trying to convince Americans that he doesn’t mean it, and that he’ll ultimately let bygones be bygones should he make it back into the White House.
No one sounded more ridiculous doing this than Dr. Phil. He told CNN’s Abby Phillips after his interview with Trump aired that Trump wouldn’t follow through with his threats for revenge, because “I made some headway with him that that is not the way to go.”
“I think he’ll turn this over and over in his mind and I don’t think he will do that,” Dr. Phil said of Trump taking revenge against his enemies. “To the extent that I have any opportunity to lead into this with him, I am going to relentlessly try and get him to not get him to do that.”
Dr. Phil maintained a straight face as he implied he could exercise some sort of influence over Trump.
Dr Phil suggests Trump won’t follow through on his pledges to seek revenge against his perceived enemies because he claims that he made progress with Trump on convincing him that’s not the right thing to do… pic.twitter.com/GIoTvwdida
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 7, 2024
Dr. Phil may indeed be so naive as to think he could talk Trump down from taking revenge. It’s less likely that Kellyanne Conway — the former Trump adviser of “alternative facts” fame — actually believes Trump will abandon his plans for payback. She’s still trying to convince people he will, though.
Conway told Fox News on Thursday that the idea that Trump wants to take revenge is nothing more than a “narrative by the lemmings in the media,” and that “if you need any evidence look no further than how he just stood down in any kind of prosecution of Hillary Clinton.”
It’s true that Clinton was never prosecuted. It’s also true that Trump repeatedly called for the Justice Department to investigate her, and has disavowed former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for not being more aggressive. Sessions did make moves to carry out Trump’s directive to go after Clinton, and it was revealed last year that the Justice Department was looking into her family’s foundation for the duration of Trump’s presidency, turning up empty and closing the case just days before he left office.
Kellyanne claims that Trump doesn’t want revenge: If you need any evidence, look no further then how he just stood down in any kind of prosecution of Hillary Clinton. Many people said lock her up. pic.twitter.com/yTZ8aAcLUy
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 7, 2024
Conway isn’t the only right-wing figure to claim the idea that Trump wants revenge is a media creation. Jesse Watters dedicated a chunk of his Fox News show on Thursday to what a cartoonish graphic hanging over his right shoulder described as a “NEW TRUMP HOAX.”
“Trump says he wouldn’t, it’s bad for the country,” Watters explained.
Watters claimed that the media deceptively edited Trump’s interview with Hannity, cutting out the part where Trump said taking revenge would be bad for the country. Trump cited his nonexistent restraint after he took office in 2017. “After we won against Hillary, people would say lock her up, lock her up, and I said wouldn’t it be terrible if I locked up the wife of the president of the United States, and locked up the former Secretary of State,” he told Hannity in a clip Watters seems to think proves that this is nothing but a hoax.
We already covered how Trump very much wanted the Justice Department to go after Clinton, and he very much participated in the calls to “lock her up.” As with so many aspects of Trump’s appeal to Americans as he tries to win another term in office, it takes a severe case of amnesia to buy the idea that he isn’t plotting to weaponize the Justice Department to go after his enemies.
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