‘Simply Put, He Wants Revenge’: Washington Post Reporter Details Trump’s Plans to ‘Punish His Critics’ in a Second Term

The Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf summarized Donald Trump’s goal as vengeance, based on his latest reporting about the former president.

Arnsdorf joined Morning Joe on Monday to talk about the Post article he co-authored this weekend, which dealt with Trump’s thirst to punish his various political enemies. The report described Trump’s eagerness to weaponize the Justice Department against his foes and defected allies. Mika Brzezinski pressed Arnsdorf for specifics on what the ex-president wants to do if elected again.

“Simply put, he wants revenge,” Arnsdorf said. “He wants to use the power of the federal government to punish his critics, and what’s the crime they committed? It’s the crime of criticizing Donald Trump.”

Because Trump has been openly threatening his political foes for some time, Arnsdorf emphasized that the report’s most important detail was that those close to Trump are trying curry favor by coming up with plans for him to enact his revenge.

“That means they’ll be staffing the White House with people who will carry out those orders,” said Arnsdorf, “and they’ll be eliminating the traditional insulation between the White House and the Justice Department to clear the way for Trump and his aides to be directly involved in criminal prosecutions.”

Jonathan Lemire asked Arnsdorf to explain his reporting that Trump and his team want to invoke the Insurrection Act and grant him the power to send the military against those who would protest his re-election. Arnsdorf referred to his reporting that Trump regrets not deploying the military in 2020 when the killing of George Floyd sparked civil unrest throughout the country.

Watch above via MSNBC.