'I am your retribution': Inside Trump’s new 'grudge tour'

21 March

One of the most famous lines of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign was "I am your retribution." That line wasn't aimed at swing voters — some of whom were drawn to Trump's economic messaging and were frustrated over inflation — but at hardcore MAGA base voters who had voted for him in 2016 and 2020.

Hardcore MAGA Republicans applauded Trump's message of revenge against political enemies — a theme he continued to embrace after returning to the White House on January 20.

In an article published on March 21, Axios' Zachary Basu details the ways in which Trump — now two months into his second presidency — is trying to get back at those he considers political enemies.

"In the final days of the 2024 campaign," Basu explains, "Axios identified a list of perceived adversaries who fit what Trump ominously described as 'the enemies from within.' As president, he has taken steps to retaliate against virtually all of them…. Trump has revoked security clearances from former President (Joe) Biden, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco."

Basu continues, "The FBI is investigating the Biden Administration's handling of an EPA grant program, after a senior (Department of Justice) official resigned rather than pursue a criminal inquiry that she believed was baseless.… On Monday, (March 17), Trump announced he was terminating Secret Service protection for Biden's son and daughter, Hunter and Ashley, 'effective immediately.'"

The Axios reporter notes that some of Trump's targets are Republicans who served in his first administration. For example, Trump removed U.S. Secret Service protection for former National Security Director John Bolton and ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who is also a former CIA director) despite threats against them from Iran.

"Trump despises his former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, (Gen. Mark Milley), who called the president 'fascist to the core' in 2023," Basu observes. "Trump yanked both his security clearance and personal security detail…. Trump claimed, this week, that Biden's preemptive pardons of (former Rep. Liz) Cheney and other members of the January 6 Committee are 'void' because of Biden's alleged use of an autopen."

Trump, Basu adds, also "stripped security clearances from New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in retaliation for their investigations into his business practices" and "fired and demoted federal prosecutors and FBI officials involved in the investigation of the January 6 riot, while pardoning thousands of his supporters who were convicted for breaking into the Capitol."

"Trump's plans to accelerate his grudge tour were laid bare in an extraordinary speech last week at the Justice Department, in which he falsely referred to himself as 'the chief law enforcement officer in the country," Basu writes. "That's actually his attorney general, Pam Bondi. Addressing an agency that has long prided itself on its independence, Trump attacked his political enemies as "scum" and called for them to be jailed."

Read the full Axios article at this link.

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