Last week, 2024 GOP presidential candidate frontrunner and former President Donald Trump caused a stir when he told Fox News host Sean Hannity he would be a “dictator” on day one if he wins the election next year.
He appeared to double down on the comment Saturday in a speech delivered at the New York Young Republican Club’s 111th Annual Gala.
“These People are sick. They’re bad. [Peter] Baker today in The New York Times, he said that I want to be a dictator. I didn’t say that I said I want to be a dictator for one day,” Trump clarified. During his interview with Hannity, Trump said he would be “dictator” to close the border.
“We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling,” he told Hannity. In his speech, he continued using rhetoric that tied border crossings to crime and other issues.
At his mention of the dictator comment, the crowd at the event cheered and clapped. Other attendees included Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and more.
“The chairman of an Austrian political party founded by ex-Nazis, the conservative Twitter star behind the anti-trans Bud Light backlash and former President Donald Trump all walked into a bar,” POLITICO wrote of the event, which was held at Cipriani Wall Street. Ticket prices started at $799 for members of the NYYRC.
According to The Washington Post, Trump already pushed the boundaries of his executive power when his was in office from 2017 to 2021. He declared a national state of emergency to get funding for his border wall project.
“Again, it’s not clear that Trump came into the Hannity interview with the idea that this was a pattern he would repeat, to a similar end,” said the outlet. “But that he offered the same examples to applause in front of the NYYRC crew suggests that he’s willing to stand by it.”
Trump argued during both his Hannity interview and the speech that President Joe Biden and the Democrat party are actually abusing power. Though he has been in legal trouble over his words and actions on the day of the deadly Capitol riot and has been accused of trying to overturn a democratic election, Trump still continues to make unfounded claims that election fraud played a part in his loss to Biden in 2020.
When Hannity asked Trump if he plans to abuse his power if elected again, he quipped “you mean like they’re using now,” referring to legal action taken against him by the U.S. Department of Justice.
“We call it now the ‘threat to democracy’ hoax,” said Trump in his Saturday speech of the concerns people have raised about his approach to elected office. He also said the “Biden dictatorship will be over” if he gets another term and that the “largest deportation operation” in history will begin the moment he would take office in 2025.
Biden himself addressed Trump’s comments Monday during a campaign event in Philadelphia, Pa.
“The other day, he said he wants to be a dictator only one day to wipe out the civil service and a whole range of other little things like that,” said the president. “He called those who oppose him ‘vermin,’ language that echoes the language in Germany in the ‘30s.”
Writing for Vanity Fair, Molly Jong-Fast said Monday that the media should take Trump’s rhetoric – and the support it gets from his MAGA base – seriously.
“He and his allies haven’t been shy about planning an authoritarian second term,” she said. Recent polls have indicated that Trump is not only popular among GOP voters, but that he is inching ahead of Biden in the overall national polls for the 2024 election. Just this week, Morning Consult polling found that Trump held a two-point lead over the president.