Trump is normally cocooned in a bubble of support. He’s at Mar-a-Lago, where people pay money to be near him. He’s at Trump Tower, where he’s everyone’s landlord. He’s at a rally, where the most ardent fans jockey to be up close to the action. Or he’s talking to some sycophantic right-wing media figure, offering the standard complaints and claims and nonsense.
On Thursday night, the lucky sycophant was Newsmax’s Greg Kelly. (To establish his sycophancy credentials, he ended the interview by saying, “We’re rooting for you. I’m rooting for you. And I know millions of other people are across the world.”) This is not the most popular show on cable television, pulling in maybe an eighth of the audience of the competition over on Fox News. But that suits Trump’s needs just fine: a few hundred thousand people without the scrutiny that comes from appearing on the more heavily watched network. Here, Trump could truly be Trump.
And so he was, with no pushback. Had he remained president — which he said he didn’t because Democrats “used covid to cheat” (no pushback) — “the war with Ukraine would have never happened. Israel, October 7th would have never happened.” No pushback and, without that pushback, a step more: “Would have never, ever happened. Just wouldn’t have happened.” Oh, okay. Just … wouldn’t have.
Kelly, the son of former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly, is a particularly outspoken voice on the network. Speaking with Trump on Thursday, he encouraged the former president to explore new rhetorical terrain.
Kelly noted that Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) had introduced legislation that would strip Secret Service protection from anyone sentenced to a year or more in prison.
His conclusion? “These Democrats want you dead,” Kelly suggested to Trump. “You realize that?”
“Yeah,” Trump replied. “Because I’m the one that turns things around. I’m the one that had the best economy in history. I’m the one…” etc. etc. The exchange had a distinct Michael-Dukakis-addressing-capital-punishment-in-1988 air to it; if Trump really thought that Democrats wanted him dead and that this wasn’t simply escalatory rhetoric, it seems safe to assume he’d have been more incensed than to simply slip into campaign patter. It’s not that Democrats want him dead. It’s that saying Democrats want him dead will enrage and energize viewers on Trump’s behalf.
At another point in the conversation, Trump fumed about Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney; New York Attorney General Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron, who oversaw the trial in which Trump was found to have engaged in rampant fraud.
“They’re evil, you know,” Trump said of the officials. “They’re evil, they’re sick.” He detoured slightly to suggest that Bragg and James should be addressing other crime instead. (Violent crime in New York City is down this year, with murder down almost 20 percent.) Then he returned to his point: “These people are crazy.”
A bit earlier, Kelly had prodded Trump to explain why, despite his promises on the campaign trail in 2016, he never prosecuted Hillary Clinton.
“I thought it would be a terrible thing for our country,” Trump insisted, then contrasting his thoughtfulness with his opponents. “They don’t care. These people are radical lunatics. They don’t care.”
The actual differentiating factor here, of course, is that Trump engaged in a number of actions that put him at risk of criminal sanction. But avoiding that sort of honesty is precisely why he lives in that bubble.
We risk becoming inured to this rhetoric that Trump’s opponents want him dead, and are evil, crazy radical lunatics. They “skipped right over socialism” into communism and fascism, he said at another point. It is, in essence, him against the worst people who’ve ever existed in the United States.
Trump’s angry commentary about his opponents has been a point of focus for violent actors in the past. The current hyperbole poses the same risk, even as it is morally indefensible on the merits. But it is mostly just background noise to the conversation as the November presidential election nears. It will probably continue to be, as long as nothing happens.
There’s a sort of serendipity for those potential jurors who were excused after having disparaged Trump in the past. Because they expressed dislike for him a few years ago on social media, they don’t get to sit in judgment of him now — and they are not included among the targets of opprobrium for his supporters.
The prosecutors, as they knew going into this, are not so lucky.
