Donald Trump had an interview with Univision this week, and he wasn't exactly subtle in terms of what his plans are for his political opponents if he becomes president again. We can't show you the video, unfortunately. They're litigious, but we've got some quotes for you. Trump said this. [00:00:15] If they do this and they've already done it, but if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could happen in reverse. Talking about the weaponization of the FBI and going after your political opponents. It could certainly happen in reverse. So that's certainly ominous. [00:00:32] The idea that he wants to pitch the various indictments that have come his way, the 91 felony counts as being totally baseless. And that has opened a door through which perhaps he and his political allies will walk if he becomes president again. Notice that in that first quote, he didn't just say that he's going [00:00:49] to do it or that they have done it to him, but that if they follow through on it. So this isn't just look what they did. Now I'm going to do it. It's hey, maybe if you guys drop this stuff, then I won't lock up your families, which is not the sort of precedent you want set in a democracy, certainly. [00:01:08] But he goes on to say, if I happen to be president and I see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, I say, go down and indict them. Mostly what that would be, you know, they would be out of business. They'd be out of the election. So, yeah, if he's president, he's going to dispatch the DOJ or the FBI, [00:01:27] which is going to be staffed by his real estate lawyers or whatever at that point. And they're just going to go after anyone who is a threat to him or who bothers him, mostly Democrats, but there's certainly a lot of Republicans I'm sure he would like to ruin the day of, and it would be designed to accomplish goals that have [00:01:43] nothing to do with justice, just revenge, ruining their chances of getting elected. All the stuff that he says is happening to him. He is saying he will do with no cause whatsoever. We've got more of this, but I want to jump into the conversation. Mondale, what do you think about this? [00:01:58] I mean, I think we got to believe what he says is Donald Trump, for God's sakes, if he wins the election, you better know that everybody that said his name and didn't say King or God behind it will be in trouble. I mean, this is a person who showed that he has no moral compass. I mean, Donald Trump is lock him up, Donald Trump and talking about himself, [00:02:16] he screams about this two tier justice and not even realizing the benefit that he's had from the justice system. No other defendant would be allowed to get away with some of the speak he's been allowed to get away with, as it pertains to people who work for the courts, the different courts, at the different levels of government. [00:02:31] So I think if Donald Trump said he's going to lock people up, we should know that, especially since you're not even going to need a law degree to be lawyers when Donald Trump's president. Well, then. And I guess I wasted, you know, $100,000 by going to law school. [00:02:48] Of course, you know, everybody already knows that Donald Trump is the biggest hypocrite. But as you mentioned, John, this has been Donald Trump's rallying cry thus far in his campaign. Is the indictments against me are political persecution. [00:03:03] Not he doesn't call it prosecution, which is actually what it is. He's being persecuted. He is the most oppressed man in the country because he's being prosecuted for things that he did do. But never mind that. And now he's just saying explicitly, despite the fact that I've whined [00:03:21] and moaned and complained all across whatever cable news show will have me on all across, whatever weird right wing Facebook live stream will have me on all at my rallies, you know, on Truth Social that this is severely unfair, that [00:03:36] prosecuting me is actually interfering with the election, that this is actually undermining democracy in this country. If I'm in power, I'm going to do that. I am explicitly saying that that is going to be my strategy to undermine my [00:03:55] legitimate opponents in an election. It is so brazen. And that's just a word that perfectly encapsulates who Donald Trump is. Yeah. And this look as a strategy, trying to take the fact that you are facing more indictments than almost anyone else in politics ever, [00:04:11] and turning that into the like, the strength of your candidacy shouldn't work. But but why shouldn't it? I guess for his base, like there's a lot of this to go around in American politics across the political spectrum, but certainly if you're a Trump fan, [00:04:27] you want a lot of people locked up. And I don't think you care over much about why. I mean, there's a huge amount of overlap with the people who believe that virtually everyone in elected office is a child eating rapist, and they should all be locked up. And and he is the figurehead of that movement. [00:04:44] So he doesn't need to come with good evidence of what Joe Biden or Hunter Biden has done. He simply claims that they're corrupt and people will believe it without question. And the fact that so many of the crimes that he's committed, there's no there's no debate to be had about whether they were done. [00:05:00] He took the documents. They were there right next to the toilet. We don't have to have a debate about whether it happened or whether it's legal. We know that it was not. We know that he did these things. We know that the white House was sacked on January 6th. We know these things. Whereas they can make a vague reference to Hunter Biden [00:05:15] getting $5 million or something. Never establish that it happened where the money is supposed to be when it happened, and 50 million people believe it. Whole cloth. So we live in insane times. But but I want to get the opinion of both of you. If he gets in, he's. [00:05:31] I think he's definitely going to try this sort of thing. Who is most at risk of investigation? Who do you think he's going to be focusing his ire on if he does actually get to make good on these plans? Ivana. Well, obviously we know that Donald Trump is a huge driving force between the [00:05:49] impeachment investigation into Joe Biden. It is he feels very aggrieved that he was twice impeached, and he wants Joe Biden to suffer that same sort of fate as he did, regardless of if there's any base there's not, or investigating him for impeachment. [00:06:07] So, I mean, probably Joe Biden, I feel like he feels very scorned. He's a massive loser. He lost to, I mean, possibly one of the worst candidates, aside from Hillary Clinton, that the Democrats have run in a long time. I mean, Sleepy Joe Biden, let's face it, is accurate. [00:06:24] We were all raising the alarm before 2020 and short of the pandemic happening, Joe Biden, I don't think wins that election. And he lost to him. And that is embarrassing. And he feels extremely scorned. He knows that it looks bad for him. So I think that primarily that's the person he's going to go after first, [00:06:42] regardless of the fact that Joe Biden isn't going to run again. Right. If he loses this election, he's not going to be the Democratic candidate in 2028. I mean, I don't want to be morbid, but I don't even have high hopes that Joe Biden would still be alive at that point. [00:06:57] He's extremely elderly, definitely not in a position where he could run a national campaign. Is he still in that in that position right now? I don't know. That's, you know, for, for for you all to decide. But I would put my money on a Joe Biden and then also Hunter Biden because. [00:07:15] Because of course. Monty. What do you think? Yeah. You know, I think that's a good she made. Ray makes great points. I would say one thing, though. Donald Trump has tied his entire life to how successful he is as a business person. So I think the legal system in New York would be in great jeopardy as well. [00:07:31] He wants to prove that he's worth all the money in the world, minus the $5 that I have. And I think he'll he'll go to bat and try to lock those people up. Here's the here's the irony of all of this. He's talking about if he's if somebody's beating him bad in another election, [00:07:47] somebody tell him the law and that he would not be able to run for president again if he wins. Like it's it's we have this thing called two terms and that's it, buddy. So I mean, the stupidity in Donald Trump, we have to go to great lengths to have a conversation about the conversation he's having just to make it make sense. [00:08:04] He can't even he if he wins presidency at this time, that would never be a chance where he's losing an election unless he plan on running for dogcatcher. And he doesn't look much like a runner. Well, you know, if you were to ask, you were to give your theory that you just gave to a member of, like, a Trump rally audience, they would say what he has said, [00:08:22] which is he was robbed in 2020. So he gets a freebie if he wants. I'm sort of joking there. We're going to return to that in just one sec. I do want to just mention that this interview that Trump did with Univision sort of follows up reporting from earlier in the week, where The Washington Post [00:08:37] revealed that in private, Trump has been repeatedly talking, not just in interviews with advisers and friends, about how he wants the Justice Department to investigate one time officials and allies who've become critical of him. So this isn't just like Joe Biden. Hunter Biden, this is also like John Kelly, Bill Barr, Ty Cobb, [00:08:56] one of his former lawyers, Mark Milley, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. So a lot of people that are not just Democrats that he will be going after, I would be a little bit worried if I was Ron DeSantis at this point. You know, if I was a former fixer for Donald Trump, I'd be a little bit worried. [00:09:13] So there's a lot of reasons, when you combine that with all of what the right wing think tanks are talking about in terms of setting up a more foolproof, like authoritarian executive state. There's a lot to be worried about. And so Mondale is totally right that technically, you know, he wouldn't even have to worry about running for reelection again. [00:09:30] But we're starting to hear whispers like people are remembering. Oh, yeah, he is like a unique threat. Would he would he try to run for a third time or would there be no need to run? I've been out of the news for three months, so I, I feel a little bit unmoored from the threat that he would pose. [00:09:45] But I am curious from both of your points of view how horrified from a democratic sort of institutions perspective, should we be right now based on what he is telling people both in front of and behind the camera? Mondale, I want to start with you. Yeah, I think listen, Donald Trump running for a third term in his mind and to his [00:10:03] followers, to me, sounds like Mississippi right in their secession letter. I think it's possible. They think it's possible. And they would definitely support him wholeheartedly. I mean, people are talking about they would rather die if Donald Trump loses the next election. So, I mean, there's no limits. [00:10:19] These people would not are not willing to go to. - Are you gonna. - Yeah. So you know if you are not to the audience, someone who pays a lot of attention to what far right wing media personalities and people who have connections to Donald Trump's strategy are saying God bless you. [00:10:38] Never, never clue into that. Unfortunately, it's my job to pay attention to those things. So I'm very clued in. And it is explicitly their strategy that if Donald Trump is reelected to remove people from key, what are supposed to be nonpartisan positions within, you know, [00:10:56] what they refer to as the deep state, but in the administrative state and replace them with pro Trump individuals who have, you know, no care for the rule of law, who do not care about the constraints of what their job title is supposed to have, that [00:11:12] are going to use those positions of power to essentially, you know, quickly pass through all of Trump's fascistic agenda. But to stage a coup of the administrative state that would, in effect, allow Donald Trump to remain president as long as possible. [00:11:29] You know, if the American population essentially doesn't rise up and prevent that from happening. But I also think that we're faced with this unique threat, which is that Donald Trump isn't currently the president. And it seems like the Democratic strategy moving forward, you know, aside from which [00:11:47] I think is a very intelligent strategy to put abortion on the ballot in key swing states, but otherwise it's just going to be Donald Trump is scary. We can't let him be president again. And I don't think it's going to be as effective as a strategy when he's not currently in that position of power. [00:12:02] And people have had four years to kind of forget just how heinous, how fascistic of a how authoritarian of a president he was when he was in power. And I think that's something that we should be wary of moving forward. [00:12:18] - Yeah. - Yeah. And the, you know, the outside of the law, outside the Constitution measures that he tried to take on a variety of different ways to remain in office. He and the thing that we need to bear in mind is that Donald Trump is Donald Trump. He's the guy that he was no better, no worse probably than he was in the first four years. [00:12:34] He's going to do a lot of insane stuff. But as Ravana was, was sort of beginning to talk about there, it matters who else is in government because had a few key positions been in different hands in 2020, Trump might still be president right now, and not just in the federal government, [00:12:51] but also, you know, we talked to the last couple of cycles about how important it was these chiefs of county boards of elections and secretaries of state. There is a reason Republicans have been pursuing those positions so much, trying to take over state supreme courts. It's because they don't have hope in their ability to win an election, [00:13:10] you know, fairly and freely. They have no interest in democracy. Generally. They want to have people in position to get done what they want to get done. And that's like the electoral side. And nobody forget, you know, how many, you know, elections subverting pieces of legislation the Republicans have filed and won in states since 2020. [00:13:27] All of that is just waiting in the wings to do stuff, and we don't know exactly what's going to happen, but also in terms of the DOJ and the FBI to take it back to that, like Donald Trump and and his top allies, whoever it ends up being his chief of staff, they're going to be choosing very differently than they were before. [00:13:44] There was at least like some attempt to have kind of professionals, kind of people with experience. They obviously cared about loyalty, but loyalty is the only thing that they're going to care about soon. And there are some former allies of Trump that are trying to remind us of that. [00:14:00] John Kelly was saying that often Trump would suggest prosecuting his political enemies or having the FBI investigate them, and he would just sort of like file it in the no, I'm not going to do that folder. And Trump would forget because Trump is a doink, but John Kelly [00:14:16] is not going to be there next time. Chris Christie was saying that you had, in his words, good folks like Bill Barr. Bill Barr ain't good folks. But there were lines that Bill Barr would not pass. And that's true for other people, the DOJ, other people with the military. [00:14:33] We already saw reports like a week ago that they're like getting like revved up, excited to dispatch the military to the streets if there are civilian protests following a Trump win. So Ravana said, you know, he may stick in office if we don't rise up. Yeah, that that is true. But if we do rise up, it might get pretty dark up in here too, because they [00:14:52] are filling the government with people who don't have any problem with crushing dissent, no matter how popular it is. So I don't know. I'm throwing a lot out there and it's probably bordering on the overly paranoid. But what do you guys make of it? I don't think it's overly paranoid. We watch Donald Trump when he was president, tell the military he tried [00:15:09] to use a general as propaganda and also try to turn the military on protesters over the George Floyd situation. I mean, so here's, here's here's what I'm nervous about. Really, really nervous about, the people who support Trump and their access to guns [00:15:26] in this country should not be minimized. We didn't see the gun part of January 6th, but it was part of the movement. Like they had guns ready to go across the Potomac. They were staged in Virginia. We also talk about January 6th, and we forget that there were bombs [00:15:42] placed at the Republican headquarters and the Democratic headquarters. So this is not a game. This is not I don't I don't think this is paranoia at all. Here's what I'm I think what happens is the only the only general around Trump the next time might be Flynn. And we know Flynn has no spine or morals just like Donald Trump. [00:16:01] And I think you're right, the absence of grown folk or what Bill Barr referred to as, or Chris Christie as good people, we're going to be in trouble. People that are afraid to tell Trump no, and people that he believes loyal to him after what he's going through with all these trials, is going to be a [00:16:16] very few people and very deranged people. MyPillow guy is going to be running and I don't know, I'm nervous. Oh, God. Oh, God. Well, maybe he can, you know, lead the FDA. He has some experience in the department of the FDA. [00:16:33] But I'll just say to the point that you were making, John, that there were, you know, I don't know, reasonable individuals relative to what Donald Trump would bring with him if he's allowed back in the white House immediately made me think [00:16:51] of the story that we didn't get to cover. But a few weeks ago, it came out that several members of the State Department, members of Trump's staff, were pleading with him not to abandon our allies, the Kurds, obligatory free Kurdistan. [00:17:07] And his response to them was, why should I give a crap about them? They didn't help us at Normandy and I just need people to recognize. There were adults in that room trying to be voices of reason at that time [00:17:24] in a new a Trump administration. It's just going to be yes man, because Trump is in a C in politics of petty bitches. The pettiest bitch. He stands alone, he operates out of spite and narcissism and anybody, [00:17:44] you know moving forward now he has, you know, developed a bit of a paranoia about people turning on him, which will only be worsened as we see more and more people flip on him, more codefendants, coconspirators flip on him in his trials that he's like, literally mean. [00:18:00] We're joking. But it is. It's going to be Mike pillow leading an important administration. That's who's going to be surrounding him. That's who's going to be dictating policy in this country. And it's imperative that we prevent that from happening. - Oh, this is going to. - Be exciting times. [00:18:17] He's not wrong about the Kurds. Where were they? Ironically, had they helped us at Normandy? He would have called them fools and losers. Why are they dying abroad? If you enjoyed this video. That's because of our members. They make us independent, they make us strong and they make us honest. [00:18:34] Become a member today by hitting the join button below.