The People (and Groups) Trump Has Threatened With Violence

For a candidate who has characterized 2024’s free and fair elections as “the final battle,” it should be no surprise that former President Donald Trump consistently makes inflammatory remarks. In fact, he often prides himself on saying what – he believes – everyone else won’t, likely much to the chagrin of his campaign staff. Things like:

“I'd like to punch him in the face.” – February 2016

“I would bring back waterboarding.” – January 2017

“They should be prosecuted for their lies and, quite frankly, TREASON!” – October 2024

“We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison.” – September 2024

Trump has long sprinkled his remarks with ominous or grave imagery – either targeting his opponents or warning of what lies ahead for America if he is not elected.

The former president in March infamously veered from comments about U.S. auto manufacturing jobs that have moved to Mexico into a troubling commentary about a potential “bloodbath” if he is not returned to the White House.

“We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars – if I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars.”

The Trump campaign said he was referring to an economic bloodbath for the automaker industry, while others argue he was referring to the country as well.

The statement was one among a campaign filled with baseless claims, conspiracies, calls for revenge and threats of deportation, prosecution, job termination and incarceration. A look back at Trump’s previous threatening statements shows that violent imagery isn’t unique, though many leave room for plausible deniability.

Here’s a roundup of some of Trump’s statements threatening or predicting violence:

Former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming 

“She always wanted to go to war with people. I don’t want to go to war. … I mean, if it were up to her, we’d, we’d be in 50 different countries. She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle, standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.” – October 2024

At a campaign event in Arizona on Thursday, Trump told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that former Rep. Liz Cheney’s foreign policy stance would be different if she were the one with guns aimed at her. Cheney, a Republican opposed to Trump who served as vice chairwoman of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, has been campaigning with Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. The campaign said the media is taking the quote out of context. The next day, Trump tried to further explain what he meant but stuck with the original imagery.

“If you gave Liz Cheney a gun and put her into battle, facing the other side with the guns pointing at her, she wouldn’t have the courage and the strength or the stamina to even look the enemy in the eye,” he said at a rally in Michigan.

Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” – September 2023

In a post on social media, Trump lashed out against retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over a phone call he made to reassure China following the Jan. 6 attack. Trump said the call could have led to a war between China and the U.S.

Joe Biden, president of the United States

Trump shared a video on Truth Social of a truck that features a decal of President Joe Biden hog-tied in the truck bed, in March 2024.

Journalists

“To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don’t mind that so much, because – I don’t mind. I don’t mind.” – November 2024

During a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday, Trump indicated he wouldn’t mind if journalists covering the event were in the line of fire. He later referred to the press at the rally as his protective glass. The campaign said he was joking, but the comments were just the latest in a years-long intimidation tour against the press, when at times he indicated prison rape would help persuade journalists that refuse to reveal their confidential sources.

“You take the writer and/or the publisher of the paper … and you say, ‘Who is the leaker? National security.’ And they say, ‘We’re not going to tell you.’ They say, ‘That’s OK, you’re going to jail.’ And when this person realizes that he is going to be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he will say, ‘I’d very much like to tell you exactly who that leaker is,’” Trump said at a Texas rally in October 2022.

Then again a month later at a rally in Ohio: “You tell the reporter, ‘Who is it?’ And the reporter will either tell you or not. And if the reporter doesn’t want to tell you, it’s bye-bye, the reporter goes to jail. And when the reporter learns that he’s going to be married in two days to a certain prisoner that’s extremely strong, tough and mean, he will say, ‘You know, … I think I’m going to give you the information.’”

Democrats

“We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big – and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.” – October 2024

In an interview with Fox News, Trump was asked about “outside agitators” potentially disrupting Election Day. Instead of answering, he talked about what he called “the enemy from within,” a phrase he’s used several times in recent weeks. During Trump’s first administration, he also suggested using the National Guard and military to quell police brutality protests, something his military advisers pushed back against.

Immigrants

“In Colorado, they’re so brazen, they’re taking over sections of the state. And you know, getting them out will be a bloody story. They should have never been allowed to come into our country. Nobody checked them.” – September 2024

Six months after his “bloodbath” comment, Trump again referenced a bloody event, this time with regard to mass deportations that would follow him becoming president.

Criminals

“If you had one really violent day … one rough hour – and I mean real rough – the word will get out and it will end immediately.” – September 2024

During a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump suggested a violent crackdown by police would lower crime rates.

Social Justice Protesters:

“When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” – May 2020

“Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” – June 2020

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote in his memoir that Trump questioned whether protesters outside the White House could be shot. Trump has denied saying this.

Hecklers

“If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell – I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.” – February 2016

“I’d like to punch him in the face.” – February 2016

During his first presidential campaign, protesters at Trump rallies earned the ire of the former president who accused the guards of being too gentle and opined for days when hecklers could be “carried out on a stretcher.”

Drug dealers

“I am calling for the death penalty for drug dealers and human traffickers, which will, upon its passage, reduce drug distribution and reduce crime in our country by a minimum of 75 percent.” – November 2022

At an Ohio rally for then-Senate hopeful JD Vance, Trump suggested the U.S. follow China’s lead and put drug dealers to death.

“With President Xi in China, I see him and say, ‘President, you have 1.5 billion people. Do you have a drug problem?’ ‘No, no, no drug problem,’” Trump recounts, then adds: “Xi goes, ‘We have a quick trial.’ … That means they catch a drug dealer, they give them a quick trial, not a trial that takes 12 years and 12 years of appeals. Twenty-five years later, and everyone’s dead by the time they get to the end of that. Now, this is a trial that takes approximately two hours. And if they’re guilty, they are executed.”

– Aneeta Mathur-Ashton contributed to this report