Former President
Donald Trump shared a menacing new video on his Truth Social account on Thursday in which he promises to “do things that have never been done before” to people who “f*** around with us.” The video, produced by MAGA.com, features audio of the former president’s appearance on the late Rush Limbaugh ’s radio show three years ago. During that appearance, Mr Trump was discussing
Iran. Now, with Mr Trump set to face another federal indictment over his attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, the audio has been repurposed. The nine-second video features a close-up, black and white image of Mr Trump’s face set to ominous
music and Mr Trump saying, “If you f*** around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before.” MAGA.com captioned its post featuring the video with the words, “We aren’t afraid of them.” That caption echoed comments Mr Trump made during a town hall on
Fox News. “They feel, I guess, they want to try to demean, diminish, and frighten people, but they don’t frighten us, because we’re going to Make America Great Again,” Mr Trump said. On
Social Media, however, Mr Trump has reacted with anger to news that he is a target of a federal investigation into efforts to overturn the result of the 2020
election and has to decide whether to appear before a grand jury. Mr Trump has already been indicted in
New York for allegedly falsifying business records as part of a hush money payment scheme and is under federal indictment in
Florida for allegedly mishandling classified documents. But despite his mounting legal problems, Mr Trump continues to run and lead the race for the
Republican nomination for president. Mr Trump has led recent national polls of the race by more than 25 points, and also has a commanding lead in early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Mr Trump’s lawyers have attempted to delay many of his legal proceedings until after next year’s election, at which point he or another Republican may be in a position to squash the Department of Justice-led investigations and shield him from prosecution entirely. It remains to be seen, however, whether judges across the country will be willing to delay possible trials that would take Mr Trump away from the campaign trail and make something like his alleged attempt to subvert democracy the centre of national attention. For now, the former president and many of his supporters are adopting a defiant tone.