Trump: I will be a dictator ‘on day one’ if re-elected

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Los Angeles: Donald Trump says that he will not become a dictator if he becomes US president again except “on day one”.

That’s what he said during a televised town hall event in Iowa after warnings from Democrats and some Republicans that America was in danger of becoming an autocracy if he wins the 2024 election.

Former president Donald Trump talks to supporters in Davenport, Iowa. Credit: AP

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for candidate, had to be asked twice by Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity to deny that he would abuse power to seek revenge on political opponents if re-elected.

“Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked Trump.

“Except for day one,” Trump responded. “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Trump then repeated his assertion, as if to report on the exchange: “I love this guy,” he said of the Fox News host. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator’.”

Earlier in the interview, Hannity had asked Trump if he “in any way” had “any plans whatsoever, if re-elected president, to abuse power, to break the law to use the government to go after people.”

“You mean like they’re using right now?” Trump replied.

Trump said on that day he would use his presidential powers to close the southern border with Mexico and expand oil drilling.

“No. No. Other than day one,” Trump repeated when asked to deny he would become a “dictator” if he won the November election.

Trump, seeking a second White House term in a likely re-match with Democratic President Joe Biden, has frequently promised “retribution” on political opponents if he gains power again.

Targets include Biden, prosecutors who have charged him with dozens of crimes, the Justice Department, and the federal bureaucracy, he said in campaign speeches and TV appearances this year.

Trump was appearing at the Fox News event before a friendly audience in Davenport, Iowa, the state where the party’s nominating contest kicks off on January 15.

As soon as the event finished, Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said in a statement: “Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s re-elected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him.”

Trump was US president between 2017 and 2021, and has refused to concede that he lost to Biden in the 2020 election.

Since then, Trump has spread false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, a conspiracy that fuelled the deadly insurrection by Trump supporters at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump’s election lies also form a cornerstone of his current White House campaign.

Republican presidential candidates from left: Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy on Thursday.Credit: AP

Trump’s rivals for the nomination, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, appeared at a televised debate at the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, that was market by insults.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy “the most obnoxious blowhard in America”. Ramaswamy called Haley corrupt and said she was “the only person more fascist” than Biden.

The four candidates showed little reticence in attacking each other in what could be their last face-off before the Iowa caucuses.

Haley accused both Ramaswamy and DeSantis of lying several times during the debate but tried to stay above the fray. “No, it’s not worth my time to respond to him,” she said.

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie debates with Nikki Haley.Credit: AP

Christie compared Trump to Voldemort, the fictional wizard from the Harry Potter series who is so evil people are afraid to utter his name. “Voldemort – he who shall not be named,” he said.

Trump skipped the event, as he has done for the three previous Republican debates.

Biden has repeatedly warned that Trump is a threat to democracy, and that a second Trump term could usher in an unprecedented and dangerous age of American autocracy.

Former US Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican who is an outspoken critic of Trump and who co-chaired the congressional probe into the attack on the Capitol, said in media interviews to promote a memoir this week that a Trump dictatorship was a “very real threat”.

Reuters

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