As he campaigns for another term in the White House, Donald Trump sounds like no other presidential candidate in U.S. history.
He has made baldly antidemocratic statements, praising autocratic leaders like China’s Xi Jinping and continuing to claim that the 2020 election was stolen. “I don’t consider us to have much of a democracy right now,” Trump said.
He has threatened to use the power of the presidency against his political opponents, including President Biden and Biden’s family. Trump frequently insults his opponents in personal terms, calling them “vermin,” as well as “thugs, horrible people, fascists, Marxists, sick people.”
He has made dozens of false or misleading statements. He has advocated violence, suggesting that an Army general who clashed with him deserved the death penalty and that shoplifters should be shot. And he describes U.S. politics in apocalyptic terms, calling the 2024 election “our final battle” and describing himself as his supporters’ “retribution.”
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Many Americans have heard only snippets of these statements because Trump makes them on Truth Social, his niche social media platform, or at campaign events that receive less media coverage than when he first ran for president eight years ago. But his words offer a preview of what a second Trump term might look like.
For years, Trump has insulted political opponents, painted a dark picture of the country and made comments inconsistent with democratic norms. But his language has grown harsher, as he admits. “These are radical left people,” Trump said of Democrats in Salem, N.H., in January. “I think in many cases they’re Marxists and Communists. And I used to say that seldom. Now I say it all the time.”
Trump’s stolen-election talk, preoccupation with his criminal indictments and pledges to seek revenge have become organizing principles of his current campaign. He has made the same case — sometimes word for word — in dozens of appearances since announcing his candidacy last year. “He’s not laying out a political agenda,” said Didi Kuo of Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. “His campaign is based purely on stoking division and on attacking our institutions in order to defend himself.”
(In a continuing series of Times stories, our colleagues Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman have previewed a potential second Trump presidency. Among the subjects: legal policy, immigration and the firing of career government employees.)
Many democracy experts are deeply alarmed. “If he says what he means and means what he says, and someday is able to implement it, it’s an existential crisis that the U.S. would face,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
Barbara Comstock, a Republican former congresswoman from Virginia, told us, “This is a very embittered man who I think very much wants to take these actions.”
“Both this rhetoric and all G.O.P. plans announced for a second Trump term indicate clearly that retribution and institutional destruction outside the rule of law will prevail if he returns to the White House,” Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist, said.
To help readers understand the situation, The Times has compiled a list of Trump’s most extreme comments during the campaign so far. The list includes many false statements, including Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged, that the murder rate is at a record high and that Biden is behind the criminal indictments against Trump. Trump also frequently makes false claims about other political figures.
We have grouped his statements into 11 categories.
He has made baldly antidemocratic statements, praising autocratic leaders like China’s Xi Jinping and continuing to claim that the 2020 election was stolen. “I don’t consider us to have much of a democracy right now,” Trump said.
He has threatened to use the power of the presidency against his political opponents, including President Biden and Biden’s family. Trump frequently insults his opponents in personal terms, calling them “vermin,” as well as “thugs, horrible people, fascists, Marxists, sick people.”
He has made dozens of false or misleading statements. He has advocated violence, suggesting that an Army general who clashed with him deserved the death penalty and that shoplifters should be shot. And he describes U.S. politics in apocalyptic terms, calling the 2024 election “our final battle” and describing himself as his supporters’ “retribution.”
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Many Americans have heard only snippets of these statements because Trump makes them on Truth Social, his niche social media platform, or at campaign events that receive less media coverage than when he first ran for president eight years ago. But his words offer a preview of what a second Trump term might look like.
For years, Trump has insulted political opponents, painted a dark picture of the country and made comments inconsistent with democratic norms. But his language has grown harsher, as he admits. “These are radical left people,” Trump said of Democrats in Salem, N.H., in January. “I think in many cases they’re Marxists and Communists. And I used to say that seldom. Now I say it all the time.”
Trump’s stolen-election talk, preoccupation with his criminal indictments and pledges to seek revenge have become organizing principles of his current campaign. He has made the same case — sometimes word for word — in dozens of appearances since announcing his candidacy last year. “He’s not laying out a political agenda,” said Didi Kuo of Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. “His campaign is based purely on stoking division and on attacking our institutions in order to defend himself.”
(In a continuing series of Times stories, our colleagues Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman have previewed a potential second Trump presidency. Among the subjects: legal policy, immigration and the firing of career government employees.)
Many democracy experts are deeply alarmed. “If he says what he means and means what he says, and someday is able to implement it, it’s an existential crisis that the U.S. would face,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
Barbara Comstock, a Republican former congresswoman from Virginia, told us, “This is a very embittered man who I think very much wants to take these actions.”
“Both this rhetoric and all G.O.P. plans announced for a second Trump term indicate clearly that retribution and institutional destruction outside the rule of law will prevail if he returns to the White House,” Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist, said.
To help readers understand the situation, The Times has compiled a list of Trump’s most extreme comments during the campaign so far. The list includes many false statements, including Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged, that the murder rate is at a record high and that Biden is behind the criminal indictments against Trump. Trump also frequently makes false claims about other political figures.
We have grouped his statements into 11 categories.
The stakes
Trump has used apocalyptic terms to describe the impact of the 2024 election:- “2024 is the final battle. … If we don’t win this next election, 2024, I truly believe our country is doomed. I think it’s doomed.” March 25, Waco, Texas
- “If we don’t stop them this time, I think that’s going to be the end. I really do.” Jan. 28, Salem, N.H.
- “Our beloved nation is teetering on the edge of tyranny.” June 24, Washington
- “The gravest threats to our civilization are not from abroad, but from within.” Nov. 15, 2022, Palm Beach, Fla.
- “If those opposing us succeed, our once beautiful U.S.A. will be a failed country that no one will even recognize. A lawless, open-borders, crime-ridden, filthy, communist nightmare. That’s what it’s going and that’s where it’s going. … Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country.” March 4, National Harbor, Md.
- “Either we surrender to the demonic forces, abolishing and demolishing — and happily doing so — our country, or we defeat them in a landslide on Nov. 5, 2024. Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state.” March 25, Waco, Texas
- “This election will decide whether America will be ruled by Marxist, fascist and communist tyrants who want to smash our Judeo-Christian heritage.” Sept. 15, Washington
- “I will prevent World War III. … And without me, it will happen. And this won’t be a conventional war with army tanks going back and forth, shooting each other. This will be nuclear war. This will be obliteration. Perhaps obliteration of the entire world.” June 10, Columbus, Ga.
