Trump says what's happening to the country 'has to stop'
Former President Trump told Fox News on Wednesday that critics claiming he'd seek retribution against political opponents are "wrong," but he would have "every right" to go after his adversaries if he is re-elected in November.
Trump sat down for an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity to discuss the state of the country and his political campaign after he was found guilty last week on 34 counts of falsifying business records in NY v. Trump.
Hannity asked the former president what he would say to people who believe he wants retribution and will use the justice system to go after his political adversaries if he returns to the White House in 2025.
Former President Trump sits down with Fox News host Sean Hannity. ((Fox News/Hannity))
"Number one, they're wrong," Trump replied. "It has to stop, because otherwise, we're not going to have a country. Look, when this election is over, based on what they've done, I would have every right to go after them, and it's easy, because it's Joe Biden and you see all the criminality, all of the money that's going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine."
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee claims the Biden family and its associates received millions from foreign entities — including countries like China, Ukraine and Romania — when President Biden was vice president.
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"The Bidens intentionally sought to hide, confuse, and conceal their influence-peddling schemes, but bank records don’t lie. The Bidens made millions from foreign nationals providing what seems to be no services other than access and influence. From the thousands of records we’ve obtained so far, we know the Biden family set up over a dozen companies when Joe Biden was vice president," read a press release from House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer's office in May 2023.
House Oversight chair James Comer, R-Ky., is leading a probe into the business dealings of Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post, Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA)
Biden’s brother James testified earlier this year that the president "never had any involvement" in the family’s business dealings. Ian Sams, the White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, told MSNBC last year that there "isn't any evidence of wrongdoing" as House Republicans claim.
Trump said he doesn’t want to do what Democrats have done to the Republican Party.
"They want to arrest on no crime. They want to arrest the person that won the nomination in a landslide," he told "Hannity."
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"What they're doing to me, if it's going to continue, we're really not going to have much of a country left. It's really, it is weaponization. You call it lawfare, you call it — some people call it just warfare — but it is weaponization of the election," the 2024 GOP frontrunner added.
Former President Trump responds to claims he would seek retribution for the 'lawfare' waged against him by Democrats.
"And we're talking about, I think, the most important election in the history of our country. This will go down, I believe, as the most important election in the history of our country. We can't have this stuff go on."
Ashley Carnahan is a production assistant at Fox News Digital.