The Kamala Harris campaign has warned Donald Trump will “rule like a dictator” if reelected after the Republican presidential nominee said he would jail those “involved in unscrupulous behaviour” during this year’s election.
Just days before his presidential debate with Harris, Trump went on his Truth Social site Saturday to continue his attempts to undermine the integrity of this year’s vote, having previously avoided questions on whether he’d accept the results of November’s election.
In his posts, Trump baselessly accused Democrats of “rampant Cheating and Skullduggery” during the 2020 contest and warned the 2024 race “will be under the closest professional scrutiny.”
“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote.
“Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials,” he added. “Those involved in unscrupulous behaviour will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
On Monday, Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa responded to Trump’s comments.
“As we head into the debate, an extreme and unhinged Donald Trump is further ratcheting up his dangerous threats of revenge and retribution,” Moussa said in a statement.
“Aided by his Supreme Court justices that gave him virtually unlimited immunity, and his Project 2025 allies who wrote the playbook to give Trump virtually limitless, unchecked power, Trump is openly laying out how he will try to rule as a dictator on day one to go after his political enemies.”
“Another thing is clear: For Donald Trump, it’s all about himself,” the statement continued, adding that Trump was on a “self-obsessed revenge tour.”
Even before a vote has been counted, Trump has repeatedly attempted to sow doubt about the results later this year, effectively running the same playbook that followed his 2020 election defeat to President Joe Biden, where he insisted voter fraud marred the outcome.
In reality, dozens of courts, Republican state officials and his own administration have said he lost fairly. Trump himself last week acknowledged he lost “by a whisker.”
Revenge has been a hallmark of his 2024 campaign.
“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution,” he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March last year at the start of his latest bid for the White House, according to The Guardian.
Trump has also admitted he plans to act like a “dictator” if reelected — but only on “day one” of a new administration.