Trump says he'll only be a dictator 'on day 1'
- Trump largely tried to laugh off concerns that he might become a dictator.
- Fox News host Sean Hannity wanted him to assure the American people that would never happen.
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday night largely tried to laugh off concerns that if he reclaims the White House he'll turn into an American Caesar.
"Except for day one," he told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a town hall in Iowa when asked if he would ever abuse power as retribution.
"Look, he's going crazy," Trump said of Hannity's initial response.
"Meaning?" Hannity tried to press.
"I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill," Trump continued. "We love this guy, he says, 'you're not going to be a dictator are you?' I said, no, no, no, other than Day 1," Trump said.
By the end of his answer, Trump was smiling and chuckling. Hannity stressed that such policies would not be the kind of retribution he was asking about.
The question was based on a series of columns and analysis of the former president's rhetoric. The Atlantic recently devoted an entire issue to expressing grave concerns on how Trump will behave if he returns to office. The Washington Post also published a lengthy column with images that showed Trump molding into Caesar and with Napoleon's hat.
"Our team of brilliant writers makes a convincingly dispositive case that both Trump and Trumpism pose an existential threat to America and to the ideas that animate it," Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in an editor's note explaining The Atlantic's issue. "The country survived the first Trump term, though not without sustaining serious damage. A second term, if there is one, will be much worse."
Trump has threatened to use the Justice Department to "indict" his political opponents. He also referred to some of his political opponents as "vermin," echoing a line used by Adolf Hitler. The former president has also argued that undocumented immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country." His campaign has strongly defended his rhetoric.
"Everything President Trump is saying is true. It's honestly despicable and racist for any news organization to make disgusting connections as they have done in the past few days," spokesperson Steven Cheung told NPR.
The concerns come as Trump holds a commanding lead in the GOP primary weeks before voting kicks off in Iowa. Way too early polling of a potential general election rematch with President Joe Biden shows Trump within striking distance if not leading.
The former president response differs from some of his allies, who have argued that the concerns make it more likely that violence will occur before the election next year.
"All of these articles calling Trump a dictator are about one thing: legitimizing illegal and violent conduct as we get closer to the election," Sen. J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Everyone needs to take a chill pill."