The Left and the legacy media continue to indulge in hysteria and accusations about the potential of Donald Trump taking revenge on his “enemies.” They are determined to call him out for planning these dastardly deeds—even though Trump has repeatedly denied an interest in taking such actions:

Though Trump has at times offered assurances that he wouldn’t try to avenge the wrongs he says he’s suffered, some of his critics aren’t convinced he means it.

A Fox News host asked him last month if he would ‘do to them what they did to him.’

‘A lot of people say that’s what should happen if you want to know the truth,’ Trump said.

Asked if he would ‘look at his political enemies’ when back in office, Trump said: ‘No, I want to make this the most successful country in the world. That’s what I want to do.’

But accepting Trump’s statements at face value would undermine their agenda: destroying Trump. Even though he can’t run for another term, they still want to ruin him. As they repeatedly do, the Left projects its hatred and motives onto Trump.

He does have the legacy media in his sights though:

‘We have to straighten out the press,’ Trump said in mid-December at his first news conference since winning a second term and just days after ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation suit with the president-elect. ‘Our press is very corrupt, almost as corrupt as our elections,’ Trump added. Since then, he’s filed a lawsuit against The Des Moines Register newspaper and a renowned pollster over a pre-election poll that didn’t show him ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in Iowa. He is also suing CBS ‘60 Minutes’ for how an interview was edited, in which he did not even appear.

Maybe the media is distressed by his ongoing frustration; note, however, that he is venting, not threatening anything. He’s asking for justice, not revenge.

Trump is essentially punished for saying exactly what he thinks, unfiltered. There was a time when that kind of candor was called “transparency,” and people who offered their opinions were not accused of stating facts.

When Trump provides hypothetical comments, the press interprets his words as firm intentions: 

‘When this election is over … I would have every right to go after them,’ Trump said of his political opponents during an interview over the summer.

Such comments have been piling up for months, years even, and critics are now venting their fears that Trump will weaponize the Department of Justice to go after those he says have wronged him: Biden and his family; former President Barack Obama; former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, who became the face of the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic; people involved in investigating and prosecuting Trump for alleged crimes; and more.

Again, notice that he is stating what he could do, not what he would do. In some situations, laws were actually broken.

And then there are the 51 members of the intelligence community who, at the suggestion of Antony Blinken, signed a letter, intentionally deceiving the public that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. It was a political move against Donald Trump, at a time when a New York Post report on the laptop was banned from social media. Later the FBI confirmed that the laptop was authentic.

These former intelligence employees abused the privilege of continuing to keep their security clearances, and did not have the right to abuse them:

Vice President-elect JD Vance told Joe Rogan last month that the Trump administration would pull security clearances for 51 people who signed a letter before the 2020 election questioning the authenticity of the content discovered on a laptop allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

‘They still all have security clearances, I believe, which is going to change when we win,’ he said.

Supposedly, security clearances might have been required for jobs these people currently hold. I guess they should have considered the jeopardy they were putting themselves in by misusing them. Please note, however, that JD Vance made this statement, not the President-elect.

The facts are clear: the Left is still targeting Donald Trump, accusing him of threatening revenge against them. They are assuming that his venting about events is the same as guaranteed threats. They are indulging their hysteria as they continue to defame him.

Those who are accusing him of plans to take revenge may find that the strategy works against them when their accusations are realized by the public as hyperbolic lies.

Image: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr, unaltered.