'Revenge tour': Trump has a plan to 'inflict pain' — and has 'a few targets in mind'

05 March

At a campaign rally in 2023, Donald Trump famously told a crowd of supporters, "I am your retribution" — a theme he echoed in many subsequent rallies. And when he gave his 2025 joint address to Congress on Tuesday night, March 4, 2025, Trump prioritized grievance as he angrily railed against former President Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress, and "radical-left lunatics."

The New York Times' Jamelle Bouie, in his March 5 column, describes Trump's second presidency as a "grand tour of retribution" — and that retribution, he warns, is being aimed at political foes as well as the general public.

"Donald Trump rambled, ranted and raved his way through the 2024 presidential campaign," Bouie explains, "but he was clear on one point: When he was elected, he would get revenge. 'I am your retribution,' Trump said to crowds of his supporters throughout the campaign. This was not an abstraction. He had a few targets in mind."

The targets Trump named, Bouie notes, included Biden, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr., and Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"For once in his public career," Bouie observes, "Trump wasn't lying. As president, he has made it a priority to go after his political enemies. One of his first acts once he was back in office was to remove security protections from former officials facing credible death threats, including his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and his former national security adviser John Bolton — both of whom Trump views as disloyal. Not only did he take away their protection, knowing they were under threat from Iran, but he also publicly discussed that he had removed their security, as if to entice their antagonists."

The Times columnist continues, "Trump fired more than a dozen government inspectors general at various federal agencies — most likely in retaliation for the fact that it was an inspector general who informed Congress about Trump's attempt to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden. Trump has also tried to purge the Justice Department of any lawyers and officials who worked on the January 6 investigation or helped to prosecute the January 6 rioters — nearly all of whom, of course, he pardoned or released."

Trump's "grand tour of retribution," according to Bouie, also includes appointing "supplicant Kash Patel" as FBI director and showing his "deep hostility toward Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky."

"Altogether, Trump has done more to actualize his desire for retribution than he has to fulfill his campaign promise to lower the price of groceries or reduce the cost of housing," Bouie observes. "A telling sign, perhaps, of his real priorities in office. This fact of Trump's indifference to most Americans — if not his outright hostility toward them, considering his assault on virtually every government function that helps ordinary people — suggests another dimension to his revenge tour. It is almost as if he wants to inflict pain not just on a specific set of individuals, but on the entire nation."

Jamelle Bouie's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

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