'Make them afraid': Conservative bashes Trump for latest 'ominous' and 'chilling' threat

President Donald Trump and others in his administration are now entertaining the prospect of prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey over a social media post he deleted shortly after posting it. But conservative journalist and commentator Charlie Sykes is arguing that the threat is about way more than a photo posted online.

On Thursday, Comey posted a photo of seashells spelling out "8647," with "86" being a restaurant term meaning to get rid of a food item or a customer, and "47" signifying Trump, who is the 47th president of the United States. He later deleted the post and replaced it with a statement reading: "I posted a picture earlier of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down." That explanation wasn't good enough for administration officials like Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who said Thursday night that Comey "should be behind bars" for the post.

in a Friday appearance on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Sykes said that the threats to prosecute and jail the former FBI director for the deleted post are overblown, and that the rhetoric against Comey should instead be interpreted as a thinly veiled message to Trump's political enemies.

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"We need to keep two things in our heads at the same time. One, this is absurd and it is idiotic. And I want to use the word BS about it," Sykes said. "But on the other hand, it's also ominous and is intended to be chilling."

"The revenge tour that Donald Trump is on in his second presidency is designed not simply to punish his critics and his enemies, but it is to make them afraid," he continued. "It's to make other people think twice. Should I say anything? Should I make a joke? Should I write this op-ed piece? Should I make this commentary on television?"

The conservative journalist went on to remind viewers that there have been plenty of "MAGA influencers who've used '86' before" in reference to former President Joe Biden, saying the threat to Comey was "hypocritical" in that regard. He further opined that the administration was likely now looking for any "pretext" to justify using the full apparatus of the federal government to go after Trump's opponents.

"I think this is part of the world that we're living in. People are asking themselves, okay, what what charge might they trump up? What sort of an accusation might they levy against us? And what will it mean to me and my family if I am investigated, if I have to have lawyers, if I have to go in and testify under oath," Sykes said. "So this is absurd. It's ridiculous. It's idiotic. And yet it is also ominous, and it is chilling that they would do something like this.

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Watch the full segment below, or by clicking this link.

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