Trump Allies Are Begging Him to Stop Hinting at Violence on Social Media

Donald Trump’s strategy has long been to never apologize for anything, but after posting an image of himself standing next to Manhattan District attorney Alvin Bragg and holding a weapon, even he appears to be having some second thoughts.

In the days since Trump fired off the now-deleted Truth Social post, he began asking multiple people in his orbit what they thought of the post — and the subsequent uproar around it. According to a person familiar with the matter and another source close to the ex-president, Trump was gently advised to veer away from any public comments or posts that were too obvious in their implications of violence.

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The sources say Trump, in his recent private remarks, also indicated he was aware of the media pushback from some of his allies. Those skeptics included allies who’d tolerated other outbursts, such as when Trump warned of “potential death and destruction” were he to be indicted.

The nudges come as Trump’s team, behind closed doors, has expressed concern over his social media posts, with some of his closest allies suggesting that he tone it down about Bragg and possible criminal proceedings against him.

“Look, anybody who tells you, ‘I’ve known Donald Trump forever, he trusts me, I’m going to tell him to pipe down,’ is overestimating their influence. At the end of the day, Trump is going to be Trump, and you can’t stop him from doing everything you might not do yourself. I could do without the ‘death and destruction’ talk, you know?” the person close to Trump says.

“But when he asked people what did you think of it, some of us cautioned the [former] president on things like the [baseball] bat post, and the message to him was two-fold and it’s a message I think he gets,” the person continues. “One: Don’t give Bragg something he could use against you. And two: Don’t make it easier for these people to accuse you of advocating physical violence. You do not need to give your enemies something to hit you with.”

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. A Trump attorney declined comment.

Trump earlier this month incorrectly predicted his arrest was imminent in Bragg’s probe of his hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. Since then, he has directed a stream of invective at Bragg. (His team has also cooked up a specific plan to take revenge on the prosecutor if Trump retakes the White House.) Beyond the baseball bat post and the “death and destruction” warning, he has described Bragg — Manhattan’s first Black district attorney — as an “animal” and “racist.” Trump also claimed Bragg was “Soros-backed,” referring to the Jewish Holocaust survivor, philanthropist, and frequent conspiracy theory target, George Soros. Trump has also called prosecutors “human scum” and told his fans to “protest, take our nation back.”

Some of his team’s concern about Trump’s posting has spilled into public view. Even Trump’s own lawyer, Joe Tacopina, couldn’t bring himself to defend the former president’s post with Bragg and a baseball bat. “I’m not [Trump’s] social media consultant,” Tacopina told host Chuck Todd Sunday in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I think that was an ill-advised post that one of his social media people put up and he quickly took down when he realized the rhetoric and the photo that was attached to it.”