Donald Trump keeps doubling down on false and alarming claims — even as friendly media hosts try to steer him toward a cleanup, an analyst said Tuesday.
The former president has vowed to be a dictator on "Day One" and threatened to prosecute his political enemies, and then he has infamously refused to walk back those inflammatory comments — even when prompted by Fox News hosts.
MSNBC's Claire McCaskill said that made him both a bad candidate and a threat to democracy.
"Both Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have tried repeatedly to clean up on aisle 5 with Donald Trump, and he refuses to get the broom out," said McCaskill, a former Democratic U.S. senator from Missouri.
"He won't clean it up, he wants that out there. He wants that, he actually believes he's going to win this election by pumping his base, not by appealing to all of America, not by unifying the country, not by convincing voters who are on the fence or haven't made up their mind. He just wants to amp up his base. He knows they want to hear that he's going to go after his opponents, whether the facts are there or not."
Trump has justified this threat by claiming his own prosecutions are politically motivated, but McCaskill said those cases have been lawful and appropriate because investigators have shown evidence of wrongdoing and even secured felony convictions at the one trial he has faced.
"Now, having said that, I do want to reassure people," McCaskill said. "Ultimately, in the United States of America, we still have a pretty good gatekeeper called juries. Juries want evidence, I've stood in front of many of them. They will not give a prosecutor a conviction without evidence. Judges still determine what is admissible evidence and what isn't? Someone's egomaniac attempt to thwart the rule of law in this country, I have a lot of doubt he could succeed at doing it.
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"Having said that, there's no question he wants everybody to believe he's going to do it. Frankly, that alone should scare people, especially when you realize one of the advantages we have over the rest of the world in terms of our economics is belief in our rule of law. That's why businesses are scared of China – they don't want to have their contract voided. They don't want to be taken to court with no evidence."
"This rule of law thing is a big, darn deal, and I would have used another word there, but it's early," she added. "He doesn't have respect for it, it's very clear. He doesn't understand he's being charged with crimes because there's evidence."
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