Donald Trump says he will lock up his political enemies if he is president again.
In an interview on Tuesday, the rightwing broadcaster Glenn Beck raised Trump’s famous campaign trail vow to “lock up” Hillary Clinton, his opponent in 2016.
Beck said: “Do you regret not locking [Clinton] up? And if you’re president again, will you lock people up?”
Trump said: “The answer is you have no choice because they’re doing it to us.”
Trump told Beck that Biden was behind the indictments against him. In fact, all were brought by prosecutors independent of the White House: 44 by the Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, 34 by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, and 13 by Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia.
Trump also claimed “the woman that I never met, that they accused me of rape, that’s being run by a Democrat, a Democrat operative, and paid for by the Democrat [sic] party”.
That was a reference to civil claims brought by E Jean Carroll, a writer who says Trump sexually assaulted her in New York in the 1990s. Earlier this year, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and fined about $5m. A second trial is due next year. The judge in the case has said Trump has been adjudicated a rapist.
Also facing investigations of his business affairs, Trump said Democrats and other opponents were “sick people … evil people”.