Former US president Donald Trump has brushed aside warnings from the Democrats over his potential return to the White House and claimed that it’s his successor, Joe Biden, who poses a danger to the country’s democracy. Trump made these comments ahead of a possible rematch between the two at the polls next year.
Trump, who remains entangled in a series of federal and state legal battles related to allegations that he attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, has nudged ahead of Biden in polling for a potential presidential race in 2024, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Although his campaign is likely to be conducted in the shadow of mounting legal issues, the presumptive GOP nominee has dismissed Democratic Party warnings that a Trump win represents a threat to the US as a “hoax” and “misinformation.”
“Can you believe it? This is their new line, you know,” Trump said on Saturday at an event hosted by the New York Young Republican Club. “Here we go again – ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ ‘Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.’ One hoax after another.”
Trump added: “But no, I’m not a threat. I will save democracy. The threat is Crooked Joe Biden.” The former president has claimed that the myriad legal cases he faces are politically motivated and has vowed to prosecute Biden if he returns to office.
The former president’s latest comments came soon after he was criticized by his Democratic rivals for saying that he intended to briefly be a dictator if he is reelected to install more border fortifications and introduce domestic oil production policies.
“I said I want to be a dictator for one day,” Trump added on Saturday in New York, in reference to his comments days before. “And you know why I want to be a dictator? Because I want a wall … and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, said during the party’s fourth primary debate last week that Trump’s comments reveal him to be “an angry, bitter man who now wants to be back as president because he wants to exact retribution on anyone who has disagreed with him.”
Meanwhile, Biden recently cast a dire warning about the potential outcome of a second Trump presidency. At a fundraising event in Los Angeles on Saturday, Biden said, “The greatest threat Trump poses is to the democracy.”
The president also said at an earlier campaign event last month in San Francisco that some of Trump’s rhetoric has its roots in authoritarianism, especially his promise to be his supporters’ “retribution” and describing political opponents as “vermin.”