Trump’s Ominous Reaction to Report He Wanted to Execute People

Former Trump communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin revealed that Trump called for the execution of a staffer on several occasions during his time in the White House—and somehow, the disturbing news (and Trump’s even more troubling reaction to it) already seems to be fading from the headlines.

Griffin told Mediaite on Friday that Trump called to execute a staffer who leaked a story about Trump hiding in a bunker during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in response to the police murder of George Floyd.

He “straight up said [the] staffer who leaked … should be executed,” Griffin noted, adding that “there were [other incidents] where he talked about executing people.”

Griffin went on to call out former Attorney General Bill Bar, whom she claimed knew of the whole thing when asked about the report in a CNN interview in April. “Bill Barr kind of danced [around] it and said, ‘I don’t recall that specific instance,’ but there were others where we talked about executing people.”

During that CNN interview, Barr did in fact seem to justify the remarks, claiming Trump “would lose his temper” and “blow off steam” by calling to execute people. Creepily, Barr noted that eventually Trump could be talked down from his desire to see people he got upset with put to death, saying, “I doubt he would’ve actually carried it out.” Barr made no mention of what would happen if Trump couldn’t be talked down, nor could Barr say with absolute certainty—instead hedging in doubt—that Trump wouldn’t have gone through with overseeing the execution of political enemies.

In response to the news that Trump had called for a staffer’s execution, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung issued an ominous and bizarre statement to Newsweek: “As President Trump has said, the best revenge is the success and prosperity of all Americans.” Cheung did not confirm or deny any of the details of the meeting between Griffin, Barr, and Trump.

Trump’s disturbing penchant for execution is just par for the course for the would-be dictator, whose bloodlust has increased in the public eye post-conviction. In early June, Trump told Dr. Phil that “sometimes revenge can be justified.” On Newsmax days earlier, Trump suggested he may pursue charges against Biden in retaliation for his hush-money trial—an investigation that he blames on Biden but which began in 2018—when Trump himself was president and more than a year before Biden announced his 2020 bid for the White House. And in 2016, Trump regularly called to imprison Hillary Clinton—calls that the freshly convicted felon now denies making but which were a hallmark of his campaign.

Donald Trump struggled to make sense during another campaign stop over the weekend—but this time couldn’t help himself from boasting one more time that he “aced” a cognitive test during his presidency.

While speaking during a rally in Detroit Saturday, Trump returned to degrading the concept of electric batteries, going as far as to mock the idea of environmental sustainability while alleging that environmental activists were pushing the U.S. Army to make their war machines sustainable.

“They want to make them now electric. So that when you go into enemy territory, and you obliterate the enemy and you knock down what those tanks are firing, you do it in an environmentally friendly way,” Trump said to rising laughter. “The problem with the Army tanks like cars and like trucks, the problem is that you would have to bring a battery pack along. You’re going to pull it like a little wagon, like a child pulls a wagon. So they want to build an Army tank. But, you know, the battery is very big and very heavy.”

Trump has been on a tirade recently against the basic concept of electric batteries. Speaking at a Las Vegas rally last week, Trump tried to explain his opinions on why electric batteries might be a bad addition to boats and other water-based vehicles, but ended up complaining about his fear of sharks.

But Trump’s recent gripe with environmental advocates may have started with misinformation: a Greta Thunberg deepfake that went viral last fall, in which the manipulated image and voice of the youth environmental activist called for “biodegradable missiles,” “vegan grenades,” and “sustainable tanks and weaponry.”

Despite the complete lack of coherence—or precedent—for claiming that environmentalists want green war, Trump then went on to remind the crowd how he “aced” a cognitive test … but forgot his doctor’s name while doing so.

“I took a cognitive test, and I aced it. Doc Ronny. Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas?” Trump said, misremembering Representative Ronny Jackson’s name while challenging President Joe Biden to take a cognitive test. “He was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history, so I liked him very much immediately.”

“In fact, he said if I didn’t eat junk food, I would live to 200. That’s what he said. But I said, Ronny, should I take a test? He said, well, you know, it’s Walter Reed. It’s sort of a public hospital. If you don’t do well, they’re going to find out about it. I said, well, you know, like I’m a smart person and, how tough is it? He said, it gets very tough as you get to the middle of it. And I did something that he’s never seen done. I aced it. I got every question right. I aced it,” Trump boasted.

Trump has taken to arguing that cognitive exams should be mandatory for higher office since special counsel Robert Hur issued a damning, 388-page analysis of Biden’s mental acuity, in which he described the 81-year-old president as having “significant limitations.”

In the years since he “aced” the exam, Trump has invariably tweaked the questions he allegedly received on the test, at times boasting that he had correctly recited five words and performed basic multiplication, while at other times insisting that he passed thanks to correctly identifying a whale. That is, in spite of the fact that the test’s authors claim that none of the three versions in circulation actually have a whale on them.

Donald Trump can’t outrun his tactless comment about Milwaukee, so now, he’s decided to pretend it never happened in the first place.

Last week, in a meeting with House Republicans, Trump called Milwaukee a “horrible city,” even though he is expected to head there for the Republican National Convention next month.

Republicans rushed to provide a smattering of explanations for why the former president would self-sabotage in such spectacular fashion, including Trump, who offered his own excuse—and doubled down on his insults, arguing that the city was overrun with crime, even though statistics from the city’s police department don’t support his claims.

Now Trump’s given up on excuses, and has decided to deny, deny, deny. During an interview on Newsmax Saturday, Trump insisted that he’d never said anything about Milwaukee at all.

“They make up a story that I said something bad about Milwaukee, and I just ask you this, who would do that? Who would say something bad about a place that you want to win, you want to win over?” Trump demanded.

Too bad for Trump, not only had several of his lackeys already backed him up and into a corner, but he himself had already acknowledged the original comment.

He’ll get an unpleasant reminder of his words once he arrives in Milwaukee for his likely nomination for president. National Democrats have set up 10 billboards around the city plastered with his face and comment.

Trump held a roundtable meeting at a Black church in Detroit over the weekend that perfectly summarized Trump’s snake oil tendencies—with vastly inflated audience numbers, at least half of whom were white, and Trump ranting his staple complaints about the border, inflation, and crime.

Trump allies praised Trump’s appearance on Saturday at 180 Church as a smashing success, with Kellyanne Conway claiming over 8,000 people magically packed into the rows of seats where only a few hundred could have sat, even as many pews remained empty. Reuters notes the venue wasn’t at capacity by the time the roundtable began.

The pitch by Team Trump to appeal to Black voters in a city where in 2020 Biden won nearly 95 percent of the vote was further foiled by observations that many in the audience were, in fact, not Black. Per Russ McNamara of WDET, roughly half the crowd were white. Of the eight Black people who attended that he spoke with, none were congregates of the church.

The pastor of the church who agreed to host Trump, Lorenzo Sewell, told MSNBC that people laughed in his face when he attempted to pitch them into attending the event.

“I remember walking down Grand River, a place that is desolate on the west side of Detroit, and walking down the street and just inviting people, saying, ‘The former president is here if you want to come,’” Sewell told MSNBC. “They were laughing like I was when I first was approached.”

Sewell spent time before the event began wearing a ‘Make Black America Great Again’ shirt, according to Reuters, with the panel moderated by Trump V.P. hopeful Byron Donalds. NAACP Detroit Chapter leader and Detroit pastor Dr. Wendell Anthony panned the event, telling MSNBC, “He did not articulate any policy. He articulated the fact that he wanted to come and get some Black votes.”

After his church stunt, Trump gave the keynote address to his real base of racists and white nationalists at Turning Point’s “The People’s Convention.”

On Friday, Lara Trump made what she probably thought was an impassioned statement against committing election fraud and cheating at Turning Point Action’s convention in Detroit.

In reality, Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law showed that she doesn’t understand the meaning of irony.

“To anyone who thinks about cheating in an election: If you cheat in an election, we will find you, we will track you down, and we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law,” the Republican National Committee co-chair told Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk, to applause from the audience.

But on X (formerly Twitter), it was quickly pointed out that the former president and convicted felon had attempted to do just that in 2020, and is on trial for it in Georgia and Washington, D.C.

Lara Trump’s election as co-chair of the RNC earlier this year signaled her father-in-law’s full takeover of the of Republican Party, and she quickly pushed through different priorities for the party, such as a new election integrity division led by former Trump lawyer and election denier Christina Bobb. That move quickly backfired, as Bobb was charged in Arizona with trying to interfere in the state’s 2020 election results. Similarly, the RNC also lost an attempt to limit voting rights in the Grand Canyon state.

Lately, Lara Trump and the RNC have been preparing for the possibilities that Donald Trump might lose his upcoming presidential debate with Joe Biden, and that he might be in prison or house arrest by the time the party’s convention takes place this summer in Milwaukee (where he doesn’t even want to go). They’re also trying to put together a party platform for the first time since 2016 with yet another election denier (and also January 6 participant), Ed Martin, taking part. Perhaps Lara Trump needs to step back and make sure the new Republican Party platform includes some introspection.