Donald Trump has claimed he was “hunted” by political enemies during his first term as president, but is now “the hunter” and out for revenge.
The 79-year-old spoke to NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich Tonight on Tuesday to mark the anniversary of his second presidential inauguration.
Trump started to brag that his first term saw “the most successful economy in the history of our country,” but quickly pivoted to his default setting: that claims of Russian influence in the 2016 election that first brought him to power were a hoax.
“The first term was great, but it was corrupted by fake, you know, the fake news,” Trump said.
“The fake politicians, that Russia, Russia, Russia, the hoax of the century, all of the different things.”
Speaking about the difference between his two terms in the White House, he said, “In a way, I was the hunted and now I’m more of the hunter.”
While he did not clarify who exactly he was hunting, Trump said, “I must tell you, these are bad people, these are sick people. They’ve got something wrong with them.”
Trump said his second term “is more pleasurable, there’s no question about it,” but added, “My first term was one of the most successful presidencies, but literally, I was hunted by these horrible people.”
Pavlich asked Trump if he was preparing contingency plans if the Democrats got control of the House or Senate after the midterms, and could possibly impeach him again.
“Oh, they’ll do it again, they’ll impeach me for having a good economy or something,” Trump replied.
“They impeached me twice, they got nowhere,” he said. “Wasted a lot of time, lot of energy, lot of money. It was a terrible thing. They’re just very dishonest people, but they impeached me twice, once over a phone call that was absolutely perfect...”
Trump continued, “These are bad people. You know, when Hillary Clinton did all of the bad stuff, I didn’t want to destroy her. I said ‘I can’t do it.’ Not so much [because she was] secretary of state. It was that she’s the wife of a president and I didn’t want to do, and yet they tried to do it to me, which is pretty sad.”
During the soft-touch interview, Pavlich asked Trump what he would like his legacy to be after he finishes his second term as president.
“I would love my legacy to be that I was a great president and a great president covers a lot of territory,” he said. “We were safe, we were prosperous, we were doing well. We were happy as a country. I’d like to be known as a great president. Great president takes it all.”
During the interview, Trump also said he would blow up the nation of Iran over threats from their government against him.
“Well, they shouldn’t be doing it, but I’ve left notification that if anything ever happens, the whole country’s going to get blown up,” Trump responded.
“But I have very firm instructions,“ he continued. “Anything happens, they’re gonna wipe ’em off the face of this Earth.”
