Former President Donald Trump is aware his rhetoric about migrants has become increasingly toxic, yet he has decided to double down on that strategy in the final weeks of the campaign cycle, according to a new report.
Rolling Stone's Naomi Lachance and Asawin Suebsaeng reported Saturday the ex-president is rebuffing advice from his campaign team to "play it safe" as voters prepare to head to the polls on Nov. 5.
Lachance and Suebsaeng cited two unnamed sources close to Trump in their report, writing that Trump intended to "slam his foot on the gas" rather than pull back on his anti-immigrant message.
"That’s how you lose," Trump reportedly said in response to one of his aides.
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Rolling Stone's other unnamed source said the ex-president paid close attention to which lines at his rallies garnered the biggest reactions from his audiences. This includes not only his false claim that there are 13,000 undocumented immigrants freely roaming the U.S. who have been convicted of murder elsewhere (most of those 13,000 are currently incarcerated), but also his call to be a "dictator" on "day one" of a second term.
"When the great Sean Hannity asked me a question... and he said, 'OK, let's get his over with. you don't want to be a dictator do you?' I said, 'Sean, I only want to be a dictator for one day. And I'm gonna close the borders, and drill baby drill, but after that I never want to be a dictator, alright?" Trump said during an October rally in Wisconsin, to cheers and applause from the crowd.
The former president recently demonstrated his willingness to take his condemnation of migrants to a new low on Friday night, posting a lengthy screed to X (formerly Twitter) in which he promised to use an 18th century law to round up, detain and deport immigrants. That law — the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — would allow for the detainment of migrants without trial based solely on their country of birth. The last time that law was used was to force Japanese-Americans into detention camps during World War II.
"November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America," Trump tweeted. [W]e will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY."
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Rolling Stone pointed out that the former president is openly embracing increasingly authoritarian policies outside of his immigration agenda. During a September rally, Trump called for there to be one "violent day" in which police could have free rein to be especially "rough" and "nasty" toward lawbreakers.
In the White House, Trump reportedly called for mass executions via firing squad, which aides had to talk him out of. That plan was regarded as the "American death squads idea," in the vein of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte's death squads that killed low-level drug dealers and addicts.
"You just got to kill these people," Trump reportedly said.