Tom Nichols Claims On MSNBC Trump Using Military To ‘Kill’ Anyone He Wants

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols accused President Donald Trump of using the military to “kill anyone” he wants and claimed that authority could be used by him to keep Republicans in control of Congress.

Nicholas joined Alicia Menendez on Friday’s Deadline: White House where he claimed that the president’s foreign strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs is part of a plan to “acclimate” American citizens into believing the military is Trump’s “private army.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered an aircraft carrier strike group to move to the Caribbean this week following a series of deadly strikes that have received bipartisan backlash. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has been the most vocal among Republican lawmakers in arguing the strikes are illegal and avoid due process.

Menendez said on Friday that the president believes he can “kill people simply because they are suspected of drug trafficking, like enemy troops, instead of arresting them for prosecution,” and Nichols agreed that it did not match his understanding of the law. He further argued Trump could be positioning himself to use the military to remain in office.

Nichols said:

Basically the president, and I want to kind of foot stomp behind Paul here about a plan, the American president has said, I can point the US military any place I want and kill anyone I want. That eventually is going to become a principle in the domestic use of the military. He is acclimating people to the notion that the military is his private army, unconstrained by law, unconstraint by norms, unconstrained by American traditions. And that, I think, I don’t really think this has anything to do with drugs, I mean, sometimes I wonder how far he’s gonna go to stop the release of the Epstein files and how many distractions he’s going to throw at us. But this is about getting out from under his already dismal record, his record low approval ratings, his struggling with a scandal. And he is now saying, I am going to acclimate the American public to the use of military force anywhere I deem it. Appropriate under any circumstances, and I may well, the president may be thinking, I may well have us in a war by the time the elections roll around, which will enable me to say any opposition to me and my party is basically treason and unpatriotic.

Watch above via MSNBC.

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