Former President Donald Trump found himself dumbfounded when he was questioned by Fox News’s Bret Baier about his proposal to execute drug dealers.
When Trump was president, he expressed admiration for how Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte executed drug dealers, and China’s leaders did the same.
“I just want to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump said in a call with Deterte in 2017, according to the transcript. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing, and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”
Trump expressed support last month for using the death penalty against drug dealers, specifically against Mexican drug cartels.
“We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” Trump said. “Because it’s the only way.”
He repeated himself during the interview saying, “We give a quick trial and the death penalty to drug dealers.”
Donald Trump Gets Caught in a Moment of Inconsistency
“I focused on non-violent crime,” Trump said of his focus on crime as president.
Baier noted that several individuals who had received lenient sentences thanks to the 2018 First Step Act that Trump signed had gone on to commit violent crimes. The law reduced mandatory minimum sentencing and aimed to reduce prison recidivism by giving credits to well-behaved prisoners.
He noted that a member of the Latin Kings gang received early release and brutally murdered a man at a bar due to the First Step Act.
Trump Plan Would Have Killed Woman He Pardoned
The Fox host hit Trump’s proposal, noting that Alice Johnson, a woman Trump pardoned, would have been executed under his plan.
Johnson had served 21 years of a life sentence after she was convicted of charges of conspiracy to possess cocaine and the attempted possession of cocaine. She had 24 more years of her sentence to serve.
Her case first came to Trump’s attention following a meeting that Kim Kardashian had with him in 2018. He commuted Johnson’s sentence following that meeting.
“She was on a telephone call, mostly selling marijuana, and she got like 50 years in jail,” Trump said.
Baier caught Donald Trump off guard when he said, “She would be killed under your plan because she was a drug dealer.”
Trump replied “Huh?”
The former president tried to suggest that Johnson would not have sold drugs had his death penalty idea been in place when she committed her crime.
“She wouldn’t have done it, if it was death penalty,” Trump said. “In other words, if it was death penalty, she wouldn’t have been on that phone call.”
Trump backtracked about his suggestion that all drug dealers get the death penalty after being shown that Johnson could have been executed under his plan.
“No, no, no,” Trump replied. “Under my? Oh, under that? Uhhhh… it would depend on the severity.”
Trump’s opponents in the media mocked him for his seeming inconsistency.
“I’m thinking Brett Baier and Jonathan Swan [NYT political reporter] should get together and have drinks and compare notes,” Scarborough said. “He’s so lost. Trump is so clueless about the fact that he’s bragging about commuting the sentence of a woman that his new policy would’ve killed.”
John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
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