Former President Donald Trump is confirming what those who don’t spend hours of their morning watching MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” every day already knew about his answer to the question of whether he would be a dictator.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, “Fake News writer Peter ‘Obama’ Baker of the Failing New York Times (READERSHIP [and] SUBSCRIPTIONS WAY DOWN FROM THE GOOD OL’ TRUMP YEARS!), whose claim to fame is that, ‘he will never write anything good about the GREAT job President Trump did,’ just wrote, in a major, front page story, that I want to be a Dictator.”
He added Baker “doesn’t mention it was said in a joking manner, and completed with ‘but only for a day, because I’m going to close the Border, and DRILL, DRILL, DRILL,’ a much different attitude and meaning!”
His post refers to an exchange he had with Fox News host Sean Hannity last week.
During a town hall event, Hannity said, “The media has been focused on this and attacking you. Under no circumstances — you are promising America tonight — you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.”
“Except for day one,” Trump responded with a straight face. But he soon dropped the facade and took a joking tone as he pointed at Hannity and said, “Look, he’s going crazy.”
The Fox News host asked, “Meaning?”
“I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill,” Trump explained.
When Hannity insisted those are not abuses of power, the former president said, “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, no. Other than day one. We’re closing the border and were drilling, drilling, drilling, after that I’m not a dictator.”
Hannity asks Trump for a second time if he has plans to abuse power. Trump admits he plans to do some dictatorial things on “day one” of his second term. pic.twitter.com/51b9I8bIJ7
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 6, 2023
The comment was obviously made in a joking manner. However, the media — which has been awash in stories warning about the alleged authoritarian dangers of a second Trump term — fell for it as though he were actually promising to be a dictator.
Vanity Fair ran a story with the headline, “Donald Trump’s ‘Dictator’ Promise Is No Joke.”
Now, look, Trump has said a lot of whacky and disturbing things, like his apparent campaign platform of retribution and vowing to “go after” President Joe Biden, or suggesting that parts of the Constitution should be terminated so he could be returned to power, or claiming he was told he is braver than soldiers for debating Hillary Clinton.
And debating whether a presidential candidate seriously stated he plans to be a dictator is not really a conversation you want to be having.
But it was clear in the context that Trump was just trying to stir things up and have some fun. Even those who don’t really like him but aren’t infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome can see it.