Conservative commentator Charlie Sykes predicted that Donald Trump will continue escalating his inflammatory rhetoric ahead of at least three criminal trials and the 2024 presidential election.
“The level of his rhetoric seems to be intensifying against prosecutors, judges, perhaps even jurors here,” Sykes said on MSNBC on Thursday. “And I think the people need to understand, you know, that this may sound like ... the same old playbook. But he does seem to be ramping it up at exactly the moment when you would think that calmer heads would say, hey, we need to lower the temperature because this is dangerous.”
“In Donald Trump’s mind, an atmosphere of fear, chaos and violence actually works for him, he thinks,” Sykes added. “He looks at that and he goes yeah, I can I can work with this. This will benefit me.”
“He’s pouring the kerosene on the fire on a daily basis and again, it is ramping up and it’s going to get worse over the next year and a half,” he noted.
Sykes was reacting to the FBI killing of a Utah man authorities say made online death threats against US President Joe Biden and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Craig Robertson was shot on Wednesday by agents attempting to serve arrest and search warrants at his home, the FBI said.
According to charging documents, Robertson called Bragg ― who is prosecuting Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money case ― a “radical fool prosecutor” and threatened to kill him.
Trump routinely threatens and attacks judges and prosecutors involved in cases targeting him. He has repeatedly lashed out at Bragg, and once suggested that an indictment by Bragg could result in “death & destruction.”
The former president has been indicted three times this year, on charges related to a hush money payment in 2016, his handling of classified documents after leaving office and, most recently, over his attempted coup following the 2020 election.
Watch the MSNBC segment below.