With Election Day just four days away, the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump remains an extremely tight one. With just about every vote in every swing state primed to make a difference, the venerated New York Times Editorial Board made it crystalline where it stands by outlining — first in huge, bold font on the top- and bottom-fold of its Oct. 27 Sunday Opinion section — what Trump has said he’ll do if elected again.
The text ends with the foreboding phrase: Believe Him.
As the Times pointed out, one of the most disturbing promises Trump has made is that he will employ the Justice Department to punish people he doesn’t particularly care for. During an interview with Fox News earlier this year, Trump stated that he would use the Justice Department to go after his political opponents after he was criminally convicted in May.
“Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them, and it would be easy because it’s Joe Biden,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. He also repeated this sentiment during an interview with Newsmax.
“It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them,” Trump reiterated. In the past, he attempted to use the I.R.S. and his attorneys general to investigate rivals like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and former F.B.I. director James Comey.
No charges were filed against them, but if Trump is re-elected, he will most likely try again. He has also promised to collect immigrants and “launch the largest deportation effort in American history,” the LA Times reported earlier this month.
Trump made similar promises during his 2016 presidential campaign and deported around 325,000 immigrants during his tenure, according to CBS News. This time around, the former president is ready to mobilize government resources to deport far more.
In an interview with Fox News on Oct. 13, Trump also claimed that as president he will also deploy the American military against its own citizens as he infamously cited “the enemy within.”
“I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics,” he stated.
“And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
After Trump refused to lose the 2020 election, he incited rioters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to deny President Biden’s victory—which led to the deaths of several people.
Trump has also claimed he will allow vigilante violence to end crime, will punish blue states by refusing disaster relief, abandon U.S. allies and use ideological tests to allocate federal money to certain public schools.
The former president has been extremely vocal about his plans for this country— it’s up to voters to take him seriously.