Donald Trump is ramping up his rhetoric depicting his political rivals and critics as criminals, while dropping a long trail of suggestions that he favors outlawing political speech that he deems misleading or challenges his claims to power.
In a speech Friday in Aurora, Colorado, the Republican presidential nominee blasted the immigration system and lobbed a rhetorical grenade at his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“She’s a criminal. She’s a criminal,” said Trump, who was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York hush money trial. “She really is, if you think about it.”
It’s a pattern of messaging that has long been part of Trump’s stump speeches but has escalated significantly in his 2024 candidacy. In the final stretch to the Nov. 5 election, the former president has developed a tendency to claim that speech he disapproves of is illegal, even if it is protected by the First Amendment.
A questionable cut of a “60 Minutes” Harris interview? “Totally illegal,” Trump wrote on X, saying it makes Harris look better and that CBS should have its broadcast license revoked.
The Harris campaign editing headlines in paid Google ads? “Totally Illegal,” he wrote, vowing that Google “will pay a big price” for it.
Democrats are trying to “illegally hide” part of his statement calling on rioters to be peaceful on Jan. 6, he claimed this month.
In August, Trump told a crowd in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, that criticisms of judges who have ruled in alignment with him should be banned. “I believe it’s illegal what they do,” Trump said. “I believe they are playing the ref. They’re constantly criticizing our great — some of our greatest justices and a lot of great judges. … Playing the ref with our judges and our justices should be punishable by very serious fines and beyond that.”
[bold]‘This is out of the autocratic playbook’[/bold]
An expert who studies authoritarianism and fascism said Trump’s rhetoric about criminalizing dissent is familiar, and could carry serious implications for the country if he’s elected president.
“This is out of the autocratic playbook. As autocrats consolidate their power once they’re in office, anything that threatens their power, or exposes their corruption, or releases information that’s harmful to them in any way becomes illegal,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and professor at New York University who wrote the 2020 book “Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present.”
“He’s actually rehearsing, in a sense, what he would be doing as head of state, which is what Orban does, Modi is doing, Putin has long done,” she said, referring to the leaders of Hungary, India and Russia, respectively. “Just as there’s a divide now because of this brainwashing about who is a patriot and who is a criminal about Jan. 6, right? In the same way, telling the truth in any area — journalists, scientists, even people like me, anybody who is engaged in objective inquiry, prosecutors, of course — they become criminal elements and they need to be shut down.”
Some Harris voters say Trump is channeling dictators.
“He reminds me of Hitler and the rise to power,” said Dan Geiger, a retired Pittsburgh resident. “The more he lies the more it’s accepted by his faithful followers.”
Trump has suggested investigations involving his conduct are illegitimate under the law and vowed revenge against the prosecutors who oversee them. He has also claimed, with no evidence, that President Joe Biden directed those prosecutions, even the state indictments he has no authority over.
Upon early revelations of his New York indictment, Trump said the prosecutor “ILLEGALLY LEAKED” it. And the probe into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia? “They illegally spied on my campaign.”