Former president Donald Trump declined to rule out abusing power if he returns to the White House, after being asked to respond to growing criticism of his authoritarian rhetoric.

The Republican presidential frontrunner has talked about targeting his rivals – referring to them as “vermin” – and vowed to seek retribution if he wins a second term for what he argues are politically motivated prosecutions against him.

Trump had to be asked twice during a televised town hall event in Iowa hosted by Sean Hannity of Fox News to deny that he would abuse power to seek revenge on political opponents if re-elected to the White House.

“Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked Trump in the interview taped in Davenport, Iowa on Tuesday.

“Except for day one,” Trump responded. Trump said on the “day one” he referred to, he would use his presidential powers to close the southern border with Mexico and expand oil drilling.

  • Telorand@reddthat.com
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    2 years ago

    Press X to doubt.

    Project 2025 exists. Never forget that its authors envision Trump as its executor. And if it’s one thing that I trust about Trump, it’s that he will abuse power in service of making money, and dictators make a fuck-ton of money.

    • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      For anyone not aware, Project 2025 is a step-by-step manual, created by the 50 organizations most influential on the GOP, on how to take control of the government, consolidate most of the federal government’s power into the office of president, fire thousands of government employees, rehire ones that pledge loyalty to trump, and much more. Basically fascist/theocratic take over.

      below is a link to the 970 page document, please read it

      https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    2 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Former president Donald Trump declined to rule out abusing power if he returns to the White House, after being asked to respond to growing criticism of his authoritarian rhetoric.

    The Republican presidential frontrunner has talked about targeting his rivals – referring to them as “vermin” – and vowed to seek retribution if he wins a second term for what he argues are politically motivated prosecutions against him.

    Trump had to be asked twice during a televised town hall event in Iowa hosted by Sean Hannity of Fox News to deny that he would abuse power to seek revenge on political opponents if re-elected to the White House.

    “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked Trump in the interview taped in Davenport, Iowa on Tuesday.

    Earlier in the interview, Hannity had asked Trump if he “in any way” had “any plans whatsoever, if reelected president, to abuse power, to break the law to use the government to go after people.”

    The president noted Trump has described himself as his supporters’ “retribution” and his use of the term “vermin”, famously employed by historical dictators including Adolf Hitler.


    The original article contains 639 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!