Weaponized mouth
It may be used against him one day
Donald Trump has said some outrageous things—Jan. 6 “represented the greatest movement in the history of the country”; news outlets should be investigated for capitalized “Country Threatening Treason.” Those are the quotes usable in a family newspaper—and to list all of his absurdities would take up most of this column. That might be a great idea for an editorial in the coming weeks.
But for all the misogynistic, vulgar, demeaning, insulting and hardly edifying on-the-record, in-front-of-cameras stuff the man has said over the years, it hardly gets any dumber than last week, inasmuch as his latest comments could backfire against him in the near future politically.
The former president was being interviewed on a Spanish-language television network and was asked, should he win another term, if he would use the Justice Department to retaliate against political opponents, as he believes the department has been weaponized against him. He said that he would. He said the genie is out of the bottle. Or at least out of the “box”— which is where genies live in Trumpworld.
Does anybody—even his most fervent admirers—believe that he wouldn’t weaponize the government? He’s already talking about “retribution.” His most ardent supporters say they like him because “he fights.” They might even demand he retaliate for his multiple indictments.
You should watch the interview, Gentle Reader. Or read the transcript. It can be found here: arkansasonline.com/trump-univision/
Just so Gentle but perhaps Suspicious Reader doesn’t think we’re taking things out of context, here is what he told his interviewer, in the standard Trump word salad that he uses:
Question: “You say they’ve weaponized the Justice Department, they weaponized the FBI. Would you do the same if you’re re-elected?”
Donald Trump: “Well, he’s unleashed something that everybody, we’ve all known about this for 100 years. We’ve watched other countries do it and, in some cases, effective and in other cases, the country’s overthrown or it’s been totally ineffective. But we’ve watched this for a long time, and it’s not unique, but it’s unique for the United States. Yeah.
“If they do this and they’ve already done it, but if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse. It could certainly happen in reverse. What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box. You understand that. They’ve done something that nobody thought would happen.
“They’ve taken a president who is very popular. I got 75 million votes, much more than that. I believe no president’s ever gotten that many votes and they’ve taken that number of people. And I think you can double it or almost you can triple it in terms of the real the feeling. You can’t do that. You can’t go after people.
“You know, when you’re president and you’ve done a good job and you’re popular, you don’t go after them so you can win an election. They’ve done indictments in order to win an election. They call it weaponization, and the people aren’t going to stand for it. But yeah, 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. Mostly what that would be, you know, they would be out of business. They’d be out they’d be out of the election … .”
This is politically stupid. He invites a third impeachment, should he win nomination and the election. If there is any whiff of payback in a Trump Administration II—if there is any hint that the Justice Department or IRS or any other government outfit was being directed to harass Donald Trump’s real and perceived enemies—then it’s a ready-made case, complete with precedent. Richard Nixon, anyone? For an extra added bonus, the man gives future House prosecutors a transcript!
A smarter pol would have simply answered, “Of course not. I would never do to my political enemies what they have done to me. I’m better than that.” Even if the smarter pol didn’t mean it, he’d still say it.
Donald Trump is not playing three-dimensional chess like the MAGA crowd believes. He’s not even playing checkers or Connect Four. Politically, he may not be playing Go Fish. We can almost hear his lawyers and political advisers slapping their foreheads in disbelief.
We know we are.