It probably doesn’t take long for rookie police officers to discover that they will not solve many crimes by asking prospective criminals what crimes they plan to commit. Criminals can be pretty savvy and presumably will tend to deny their intent to commit crimes, flummoxing the cops. If, however, there are recordings of the criminals and their accomplices talking about the crimes they plan to commit, the cops have something on which to build a case.
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If they want to. Sometimes, the people you’d hope would oppose dangerous behavior don’t seem interested in doing so.
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During a conversation with Donald Trump on Tuesday, Fox News host Sean Hannity asked the former president and front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination the functional equivalent of the rookie cop’s question above.
“The media has been focused on this and attacking you,” Hannity said to Trump. “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.”
“Except for Day One,” Trump replied. There was an audience of Iowans; one guy in the audience hollered, “Yeah!”
“Meaning?” Hannity asked.
“I want to close the border,” Trump said, “and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
“That’s not retribution,” Hannity replied over the audience’s cheers. Hannity laughed.
“I love this guy. He says, ‘You’re not gonna be a dictator, are you?’ I say, ‘No, no, no — other than Day One,’” Trump continued. “We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that I’m not a dictator, okay?”
“That sounds to me,” Hannity said, over Trump’s laughter, “like you’re going back to the policies when you’re president!” Exactly, Trump replied. The crowd cheered.
What fun! I guess we can put that to bed.
Trump pushes authoritarian agenda for second term
2:21
Since leaving the White House in 2021, Donald Trump has said he would approach a second term as president with an expansive view of executive branch authority. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post, Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
It’s noteworthy, of course, that Trump didn’t reply to the question as a wary observer might hope, by reiterating his commitment to the United States’ constitutional principles, including the balance of power. It would be more surprising if he were to do so, of course, given his demonstrated lack of interest in respecting that balance. But Trump didn’t say, “Of course I won’t abuse power.” He said, in essence, “I won’t be a dictator — except for the moment I regain power.”
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It is a bit inconvenient that this conversation was occurring just as attention was turning to comments made by former Trump administration official Kash Patel on a podcast hosted by former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon.
“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” said Patel, who is regularly mentioned as a candidate for a high-level position in a second Trump administration. “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you.”
This comports with rhetoric from others close to Trump — and from Trump himself. In an interview with Univision last month, he mused that he might do specifically what Hannity asked about, deploying federal law enforcement against his political opponents because they are his political opponents.
Even before Trump came out for their discussion, Hannity was brushing away the idea that Trump would pose a significant danger to the country. He showed an array of people from traditional or non-right-wing media discussing Trump’s rhetoric and the likelihood that, if elected in 2024, the former president would undercut American democracy.
“We already know what would happen under a Trump presidency,” Hannity said after showing the montage. “Why? Because he’s already been president. … There was no dictatorship. We did not lose our constitutional rights. We did not go to war.”
But not for lack of trying. As we noted last week, many of the things that worry outside observers about a second Trump term — use of the military against opponents, targeting opponents with investigations, undermining elections, gutting the federal government to install loyalists — were considered or initiated in his first term in office. He failed in part because he was still learning how to use presidential power and in part because there were still people within his administration working to hit the brakes. Trump has promised that a second administration would demand more-overt sycophancy, and his allies are promising to help.
“The people who hate Donald Trump,” Hannity continued in his opening, “they simply have been and continue to lie to you.” The crowd cheered.
Perhaps more than anything else, this shows how Hannity and other allies of Trump’s facilitate his push for authoritarian power. Hannity showed his audience clips of other media voices offering concerns about Trump — and that alone was meant to be discrediting for those concerns. That media figures who weren’t Trump allies were offering these warnings was, in Hannity’s presentation and in the estimation of his audience, a reason to assume that the warnings were invalid or overstated. Hannity’s audience, perhaps to a person, doesn’t watch those other media personalities, and they don’t read articles like this one contextualizing what Trump and Hannity say and do.
Trump has been so effective at casting the non-right-wing media as untrustworthy opponents that simply presenting something they say has the effect of validating the inverse with his base. He’s been so effective at it that a top aide can feel comfortable publicly speculating about prosecuting the media for contrived reasons.
Hannity worked hard to present Trump and his rhetoric as normal or logical. He asked Trump, for example, what the odds were that terrorists had come across the U.S.-Mexico border. “One hundred percent,” Trump replied, prompting Hannity to turn to the audience: “How scary is that?” It’s meant to be very scary. That’s the point. That’s how demagoguery works.
Their conversation came just a few hours after special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump for his efforts to retain power despite having lost the 2020 presidential election, filed a notice with the court in D.C. articulating Trump’s long pattern of “repeatedly refus[ing] to commit to a peaceful transition of presidential power.”
“The defendant’s consistent refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power, dating back to the 2016 presidential campaign, is admissible evidence of his plan to undermine the integrity of the presidential transition process when faced with the possibility of an election result that he would not like,” the filing read, “as well as his motive, intent, and plan to interfere with the implementation of an election result with which he was not satisfied.”
As was manifested in the weeks after the election, quite explicitly. Had Trump succeeded in retaining power after Jan. 20, 2021, it’s hard to believe that Hannity would have been critical of the effort.
“I want to be very, very clear on this,” Hannity had asked Trump earlier in the conversation. “To be clear, do you in any way, have any plans whatsoever, if reelected president to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people?”
“You mean like they’re using right now,” Trump replied, again to cheers. This is the point he made to Univision: He thinks — or likes to argue — that the Biden administration is targeting him for political reasons, so he is empowered to do the same.
Trump insisted that the only reason he had been indicted was that his opponents were trying to block his path back to the White House. He said that people asked him over and over whether there would be a repeat of 2020 — meaning when his opponents “stole” the election.
“‘Will they do it again, sir? Will they do it again?’” Trump said he was asked. “‘Will you stop them?’ And we’re going to stop them.”
He is going to “stop” those who would deny him power. He is going to do to his opponents what he feels his opponents are going to do to him.
That is the real answer to Hannity’s question.
Keeping up with politics is easy with The 5-Minute Fix Newsletter, in your inbox weekdays.
If they want to. Sometimes, the people you’d hope would oppose dangerous behavior don’t seem interested in doing so.
Sign up for How To Read This Chart, a weekly data newsletter from Philip Bump
During a conversation with Donald Trump on Tuesday, Fox News host Sean Hannity asked the former president and front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination the functional equivalent of the rookie cop’s question above.
“The media has been focused on this and attacking you,” Hannity said to Trump. “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.”
“Except for Day One,” Trump replied. There was an audience of Iowans; one guy in the audience hollered, “Yeah!”
“Meaning?” Hannity asked.
“I want to close the border,” Trump said, “and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
“That’s not retribution,” Hannity replied over the audience’s cheers. Hannity laughed.
“I love this guy. He says, ‘You’re not gonna be a dictator, are you?’ I say, ‘No, no, no — other than Day One,’” Trump continued. “We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that I’m not a dictator, okay?”
“That sounds to me,” Hannity said, over Trump’s laughter, “like you’re going back to the policies when you’re president!” Exactly, Trump replied. The crowd cheered.
What fun! I guess we can put that to bed.
Trump pushes authoritarian agenda for second term
2:21
Since leaving the White House in 2021, Donald Trump has said he would approach a second term as president with an expansive view of executive branch authority. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post, Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
It’s noteworthy, of course, that Trump didn’t reply to the question as a wary observer might hope, by reiterating his commitment to the United States’ constitutional principles, including the balance of power. It would be more surprising if he were to do so, of course, given his demonstrated lack of interest in respecting that balance. But Trump didn’t say, “Of course I won’t abuse power.” He said, in essence, “I won’t be a dictator — except for the moment I regain power.”
ADVERTISING
It is a bit inconvenient that this conversation was occurring just as attention was turning to comments made by former Trump administration official Kash Patel on a podcast hosted by former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon.
“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” said Patel, who is regularly mentioned as a candidate for a high-level position in a second Trump administration. “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you.”
This comports with rhetoric from others close to Trump — and from Trump himself. In an interview with Univision last month, he mused that he might do specifically what Hannity asked about, deploying federal law enforcement against his political opponents because they are his political opponents.
Even before Trump came out for their discussion, Hannity was brushing away the idea that Trump would pose a significant danger to the country. He showed an array of people from traditional or non-right-wing media discussing Trump’s rhetoric and the likelihood that, if elected in 2024, the former president would undercut American democracy.
“We already know what would happen under a Trump presidency,” Hannity said after showing the montage. “Why? Because he’s already been president. … There was no dictatorship. We did not lose our constitutional rights. We did not go to war.”
But not for lack of trying. As we noted last week, many of the things that worry outside observers about a second Trump term — use of the military against opponents, targeting opponents with investigations, undermining elections, gutting the federal government to install loyalists — were considered or initiated in his first term in office. He failed in part because he was still learning how to use presidential power and in part because there were still people within his administration working to hit the brakes. Trump has promised that a second administration would demand more-overt sycophancy, and his allies are promising to help.
“The people who hate Donald Trump,” Hannity continued in his opening, “they simply have been and continue to lie to you.” The crowd cheered.
Perhaps more than anything else, this shows how Hannity and other allies of Trump’s facilitate his push for authoritarian power. Hannity showed his audience clips of other media voices offering concerns about Trump — and that alone was meant to be discrediting for those concerns. That media figures who weren’t Trump allies were offering these warnings was, in Hannity’s presentation and in the estimation of his audience, a reason to assume that the warnings were invalid or overstated. Hannity’s audience, perhaps to a person, doesn’t watch those other media personalities, and they don’t read articles like this one contextualizing what Trump and Hannity say and do.
Trump has been so effective at casting the non-right-wing media as untrustworthy opponents that simply presenting something they say has the effect of validating the inverse with his base. He’s been so effective at it that a top aide can feel comfortable publicly speculating about prosecuting the media for contrived reasons.
Hannity worked hard to present Trump and his rhetoric as normal or logical. He asked Trump, for example, what the odds were that terrorists had come across the U.S.-Mexico border. “One hundred percent,” Trump replied, prompting Hannity to turn to the audience: “How scary is that?” It’s meant to be very scary. That’s the point. That’s how demagoguery works.
Their conversation came just a few hours after special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump for his efforts to retain power despite having lost the 2020 presidential election, filed a notice with the court in D.C. articulating Trump’s long pattern of “repeatedly refus[ing] to commit to a peaceful transition of presidential power.”
“The defendant’s consistent refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power, dating back to the 2016 presidential campaign, is admissible evidence of his plan to undermine the integrity of the presidential transition process when faced with the possibility of an election result that he would not like,” the filing read, “as well as his motive, intent, and plan to interfere with the implementation of an election result with which he was not satisfied.”
As was manifested in the weeks after the election, quite explicitly. Had Trump succeeded in retaining power after Jan. 20, 2021, it’s hard to believe that Hannity would have been critical of the effort.
“I want to be very, very clear on this,” Hannity had asked Trump earlier in the conversation. “To be clear, do you in any way, have any plans whatsoever, if reelected president to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people?”
“You mean like they’re using right now,” Trump replied, again to cheers. This is the point he made to Univision: He thinks — or likes to argue — that the Biden administration is targeting him for political reasons, so he is empowered to do the same.
Trump insisted that the only reason he had been indicted was that his opponents were trying to block his path back to the White House. He said that people asked him over and over whether there would be a repeat of 2020 — meaning when his opponents “stole” the election.
“‘Will they do it again, sir? Will they do it again?’” Trump said he was asked. “‘Will you stop them?’ And we’re going to stop them.”
He is going to “stop” those who would deny him power. He is going to do to his opponents what he feels his opponents are going to do to him.
That is the real answer to Hannity’s question.
