NPR Reveals That Donald Trump Made Over 100 Chilling Threats To Perceived Enemies

Former President Donald Trump has made more than 100 public threats “to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents,” NPR reported Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Trump ominously told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that members of the “radical left” represent “an enemy within” America that he said should be met by force.
But he’s been making such threats for a while, even telling a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023 that “I am your retribution.”
Among the people Trump wants to see prosecuted if he returns to the White House are his former Democratic opponent Joe Biden, his current Democratic opponent Kamala Harris, and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who has become a prominent Republican Trump critic.
Many of Trump’s threats are connected with his ongoing lie that he won the 2020 election.
Legal experts told NPR that if Trump is reelected, there isn’t much that would prevent him from following through on his plans to prosecute opponents.
Just Security laid out a chronology of Trump’s efforts to pressure the Department of Justice to investigate his political adversaries during his time as president.
NPR reported that some people who are possible targets in a second Trump presidency are “considering whether to leave the country if Trump wins the election.”
Ian Bassin, the executive director of the nonprofit group Protect Democracy, which advocates for protections against authoritarianism, told NPR that Trump’s threats are in line with “how autocrats cement their permanent grip on power.”
As a supplement to the article, author and NPR correspondent Tom Dreisbach documented Trump’s many publicly available threats in a roundup on X, formerly Twitter.
First and foremost, Trump targets his political opponents. If he wins the presidential election, he has promised to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Biden and Biden’s family on his first day in office. pic.twitter.com/gP3A42Ytq6
Now that Vice President Harris is his opponent, Trump said she should also be “impeached and prosecuted.” pic.twitter.com/Y4aZdZcJ0g
On Truth Social, Trump has reposted calls for Barack Obama and Liz Cheney to face military tribunals. pic.twitter.com/jXUBpRno8v
Trump suggested that former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley could face the death penalty. (Milley has since called Trump a “fascist,” per journalist Bob Woodward.) pic.twitter.com/Yjv7ndI0M9
Then there are the participants in Trump’s trials. Trump has targeted the prosecutors, judges, and even a court staffer. On Truth Social, he floated the idea that a member of the Georgia grand jury that indicted him should be prosecuted. pic.twitter.com/nxM3BZFXUC
Last year, Glenn Beck asked Trump if he would lock people up if he wins the election. Trump said yes, and indicated it would be justified because of the four criminal cases brought against him since leaving office. pic.twitter.com/sdTqldWbca
Trump has repeatedly promised to pardon rioters charged and convicted for their role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. “The cops should be charged and the protesters should be freed,” reads a post Trump reposted on Truth Social. pic.twitter.com/ZRNBSIkxjc
At a rally, Trump said people who protest and criticize the Supreme Court “should be put in jail.” pic.twitter.com/3tct1Y6SBO
And he has said that journalists should be imprisoned if they refuse to give up the sources of government leaks. He appeared to suggest that journalists could also face sexual assault in jail. pic.twitter.com/tJNDTzoSXr
Another target of Trump’s threats: election workers. pic.twitter.com/bu6eyBesIT
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These threats come in the context of Trump and Sen. JD Vance’s comments pushing back on restrictions on presidential power. Vance told an interviewer prior to the campaign that Trump should ignore the courts if they stop him from replacing civil servants with loyalists. pic.twitter.com/7FZyuYESx3
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
However, Republican National Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly told HuffPost, “Kamala Harris is the threat to democracy. She and Joe Biden weaponized our justice system in order to sway an election,” an apparent reference to the federal criminal charges that Trump is currently facing.