Several Republican lawmakers expressed concern about recent articles claiming that former President Donald Trump would become a “dictator” if he’s elected in 2024.
An article written by Robert Kagan, published by the Washington Post, included a headline that blared, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.” He wrote: “There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. In 13 weeks, Donald Trump will have locked up the Republican nomination.”
Similar articles, published around the same time by The Atlantic and the New York Times, echoed those claims. The Times article claimed that the former president is using “violent and authoritarian rhetoric on the 2024 campaign trail,” likening those comments to authoritarian governments.
Days later, on Thursday, Mr. Kagan published a similar piece, titled, “The Trump dictatorship: How to stop it.”
The articles drew a public statement from former Rep. Liz Cheney, who on Tuesday said she would consider running for president under a third party to disrupt President Trump’s 2024 momentum.
“I certainly hope to play a role in helping to ensure that the country has ... a new, fully conservative party,” she told USA Today before adding, “And so whether that means restoring the current Republican Party, which ... looks like a very difficult if not impossible task, or setting up a new party, I do hope to be involved and engaged in that.”
GOP Response
However, some Republican lawmakers have said that the rhetoric in the New York Times’ and Post’s pieces are attempts to condition the public to political violence against the former president.“They’re obviously green-lighting assassination,” wrote Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on X, formerly Twitter, responding to the Post article written by Mr. Kagan, who is currently married to U.S. State Department Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.
“All of these articles calling Trump a dictator are about one thing: legitimizing illegal and violent conduct as we get closer to the election. Everyone needs to take a chill pill,” wrote Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio).
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) wrote that the Atlantic and other media outlets are deploying “the same hysterical scare tactics from 2016 & 2020 to attack Trump,” while Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) said that the Post’s article means that Democrats have gone into “full panic mode.”
The Trump campaign also accused those media outlets of attempting to sow discord ahead of the 2024 election.
“It’s August 2016 all over again. Skyrocketing cost of health care has millions worried. President Trump’s Dem. opponent off the campaign trail & hiding from the press,” senior Trump adviser Jason Miller wrote on X before adding that the media and Democrats “have given up on debating issues & have shifted to name-calling & rhetorical fearmongering.”
A spokesman for the campaign, Steven Cheung, asserted to multiple news outlets that the attacks are “nothing more than another version of the media’s failed and false Russia collusion hoax.”
In direct response to the “dictator” assertion, Fox News host Sean Hannity asked President Trump about the claims during a Wednesday night town hall event that was broadcast at the same time as the Republican presidential debates. The former president mocked dictatorial concerns and said he would be a dictator on “day one” of his presidency by closing down the U.S.-Mexico border and drilling for oil.
“After that, I’m not a dictator, OK?” the Republican presidential frontrunner said.
An aggregate of recent polls shows that President Trump is still overwhelmingly the favorite to win the 2024 Republican presidential primary, garnering about 61 percent support. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has made little headway in recent months, stands at 13.5 percent, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley stands at 10.3 percent, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has 4.9 percent, and former Gov. Chris Christie has 2.5 percent.
