Trump Says He Didn’t Call for ‘Death and Destruction,’ Simply Voiced His Concern It Would Happen

After a months-long absence, Former President Donald Trump returned to Fox News on Monday for an extended interview with host Sean Hannity.

As Trump gasses up his 2024 campaign, the former president is caught in a maelstrom of investigations into his conduct within and outside of the presidency. As it stands, Trump is bracing for a potential indictment from a Manhattan grand jury investigating his 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

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He rebuffed claims that his posts addressing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the investigation into the Daniels payment were encouraging violence. When questioned regarding a post that warned of “death and destruction” should he be indicted, Trump replied that he “didn’t say [to] do something bad. I said I’m afraid people will do something.”

The former president addressed a separate Truth Social post in which he featured an image of him holding a baseball bat next to a photo of Bragg. Trump claimed that he had no idea that photo had been selected as the article’s image.

Multiple times throughout the interview, Trump claimed that the investigations against him were “a new way of cheating in elections,” and a form of “election interference” orchestrated against him. While the upcoming 2024 presidential election weighs heavily on Trump’s mind, the primaries present a more immediate obstacle.

Trump had harsh words for potential GOP primary opponent Ron DeSantis, telling Hannity that the Florida governor owed him his career. At one point Trump said that DeSantis had come to him “with tears in his eyes” in the run-up to his 2019 primary race begging for an endorsement. “I got him the nomination,” Trump said, adding that DeSantis would be working “a pizza parlor place” without his help.