A Rolling Stone reporter claimed Friday that former President Trump wanted to have police “death squads” to shoot criminals and pile up their bodies in the streets.
MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire interviewed Asawin Suebsaeng about an article he wrote with Rolling Stone senior political reporter Tim Dickinson titled “‘American Death Squads’: Inside Trump’s Push to Make Police More Violent.”
Trump spoke about crime at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, last Sunday, suggesting that a brief, decisive period of law enforcement could significantly reduce crime in America.
“A difficult hour — and I mean really difficult — word will get out and it will end immediately, you know? It will end immediately,” Trump said.
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“So it’s not just that Trump saw the movie ‘The Purge’ on his flight to this rally, there’s some teeth to this proposition,” Lemire said when speaking to Suebsaeng about his article. “Tell us what you found.”
The Rolling Stone reporter said that Trump’s statement was “certainly not a one-off rhetorical thing” and that “he and his top ideological lieutenants have shown over the years, including during his administration, including during the campaign current, which they I want to support with the full force of the Department of Justice, the executive branch and the federal government. »
Suebsaeng claimed that, according to Trump White House insiders, the former president had outbursts demanding crackdowns on criminals.
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“During his presidency, there were numerous times when, according to our sources, he would do things like bang his fist on Resolute’s desk in the Oval Office and demand, ‘Why aren’t the police shooting? not on all kinds of weapons’ from street criminals and drug dealers and piling up their bodies on American streets, so this can send a very dark message to gangs and all kinds of other suspected criminals in America?’ “, said the journalist.
“He did it so often and so vocally that some administration officials told us about his idea of American death squads, which was heavily influenced by his admiration for what Rodrigo Duterte did in the Philippines “, he added. .
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The journalist admitted that the death squads might not take place, but stressed the importance of this possibility.
“Is it possible that a second term, re-elected Trump will achieve exactly that? No, maybe not. But the fact is that he wants to get as close to it as humanly possible, which is a remarkable thing for a modern American presidency,” he said.
Suebsaeng then claimed that in late 2020, Trump was “toying with the idea of withdrawing federal funding from various states and cities that weren’t ‘pro-cop’ enough for his liking, or that didn’t have let the police get away with a sufficient degree of vigilance. abusive behavior or even alleged racial prejudice. He would threaten to withdraw federal funding if they didn’t do these things to his liking.
He further claimed that Trump “recently talked to people about using pardon powers to excuse individual officers, when people have been federally indicted.”
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“There are all kinds of things that his second administration would plan with the Justice Department, with the power of the executive branch, to try to make the police in this country as violent as men like Donald Trump would like them to be “,” said the Rolling Stone journalist.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded to Fox News Digital: “President Trump has always been the president of law and order and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws . Otherwise, it’s total anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris created in some cases. “