Trump's Attack on Critics Grows as He Mentioned 'Revenge' in 13,000 Messages: Report

According to a study by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), Donald Trump is expanding his list of adversaries as the November election nears. CREW noted that these actions often go unnoticed due to Truth Social's limited reach compared to larger platforms like Facebook or TikTok. The Guardian's David Smith reported on an analysis by CREW disclosing that "13,000 messages published by Trump ... found him vowing revenge, retaliation and retribution against his foes." 

The report further revealed, "The presumptive Republican nominee has threatened to use the federal government to go after Biden during a second Trump administration 25 times since the start of 2023, the study found. These threats include FBI raids, investigations, indictments, and even jail time. He has also threatened or suggested that the FBI and justice department should take action against senators, judges, members of Biden’s family, and even non-governmental organizations."  

Robert Maguire, Vice President for Research and Data at CREW, shared, "He is promising to go after what he perceives to be his political enemies. He is promising to essentially weaponize the government against anyone he sees as not sufficiently loyal or who is openly opposed to him." He continued, "He has constantly seeded this idea that the numerous charges against him are trumped-up charges and it seems almost to have given him license to openly say, ‘You’ve done this to me, so I’m going to do it to you.’" 

"It is critical in making sure that law enforcement and the Department of Justice – all of the things that entails, both the federal prosecutors and the FBI – cannot be manipulated by the president to go after political enemies. That would go a long way to hamstringing any effort by any president, to be clear, to use those law enforcement powers to go against political enemies," Maguire added.

According to the NY Times, Trump launched Truth Social in early 2022 after facing bans from major platforms like Facebook and Twitter following the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Despite being reinstated on both platforms, he has largely refrained from using X, as it's now known. Trump's platform has a much smaller reach, with fewer than 7 million followers compared to the 87 million he had on Elon Musk's X. 

According to NBC News, Truth Social received around 5 million monthly visits in February of this year, significantly lower than the billions of visits recorded by TikTok and Facebook. Additionally, concerns about 'Trump fatigue' over the past decade have led some voters to become desensitized to his statements, which would have been shocking from any other president.

In its inaugural report of a series, CREW highlighted one particular Truth Social post from August 2023, encapsulating Trump's overarching attitude, "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!" In a word cloud posted last December based on his speeches, the prominent term was "revenge." Trump's numerous threats directed at Biden often mirror his familiar tactic of flipping accusations against his opponents, constructing a narrative where he alleges they are guilty of the same offenses for which he is being accused.