Former President Donald Trump sat down with Univision for an interview in which he promised his second term would be all about going after his enemies list.
In a leaked transcript provided to Semafor, Trump justified his next campaign against his perceived enemies, saying he would pursue the same course he did in his first time but further.
“Yeah. If they do this, and they’ve already done it, but if they follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse,” he rambled, justifying his future retribution. “It could certainly happen in reverse. What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box.”
“They have done something that allows the next party — I mean, if somebody, if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business, they’d be out of the election.”
During the 2016 election, brief Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) bragged to Fox’s Sean Hannity that Republicans were able to weaponize Congress to bring down Hillary Clinton's poll numbers.
"Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping," said McCarthy.
After being elected, Trump wanted to prosecute Clinton, The New York Times reported in Nov. 2018. He then sought to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, who refused to give him the "loyalty" he sought.
It was then reported that former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe as well as Comey, were subjected to rare invasive IRS audits that found nothing. In fact, McCabe overpaid his taxes.
When it became clear Joe Biden was going to run for president in 2020, Rudy Giuliani went to Ukraine in an attempt to dig up "dirt" on the Biden family. A flood of conspiracies followed that continues today.
Trump went on to say that he would have prevented the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas by having a "deal" with Iran. Trump left the deal that was in place with Iran.
He continued attacking Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was at one time an ally of Trump. Biden, however, has known Netanyahu for over 40 years, and positive words about the help from the U.S. under Biden seem to have infuriated Trump.
It appears Trump is dialing back his previous attacks. He blasted Netanyahu in October, saying he "let us down" when Trump sought to assassinate top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in 2020. He went on to say Israel must "step up their game" and called Hezbollah "very smart."
"I think Israel has to do a better job of public relations, frankly, because the other side is beating them at the public relations front,” he said in the interview.
When asked about his family separation policy at the border, Trump defended it.
“When you hear that you’re going to be separated from your family, you don’t come,” Trump said. “When you think you’re going to come into the United States with your family, you come.”
He went on: “We did family separation. A lot of people didn’t come. It stopped people from coming by their hundreds of thousands because when they hear family separation, they say ‘Well, we better not go.’”
The COVID-19 crisis likely helped reduce numbers in 2020.
