Former President Donald Trump essentially became the living embodiment of the “we’re all trying to find the guy that did this” meme on Monday morning, telling Fox News he “will do whatever” he can to “help the country” because the “temperature has to be brought down” following the FBI’s raid of his Florida residence.
In the days following the FBI’s execution of a search warrant to seize classified documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, agents have been inundated with a flurry of death threats and MAGA supporters have openly called for civil war and acts of domestic terrorism. In fact, one such Trump superfan angry over the raid died in a police shootout after attempting to attack an FBI office in Cincinnati.
Trump and his allies, meanwhile, have reacted to the search and seizure of the ex-president’s home by flooding the zone with increasingly unhinged attacks on law enforcement and fanciful defenses of Trump’s actions. With the search warrant revealing that the former president is under investigation for violating the Espionage Act, Trumpworld has run the gamut from baselessly claiming the FBI “planted evidence” to insisting that Trump had a “standing order” to automatically declassify any sensitive documents he removed from the White House.
Even though the twice-impeached ex-president has continued to stoke outrage among conservatives over a “Democrat-fabricated witch hunt,” he sat down with Fox News Digital on Monday to lament the “tremendous anger” that has arisen since the raid.
“The country is in a very dangerous position. There is tremendous anger, like I’ve never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one—years of scams and witch hunts, and now this,” he groused, adding: “If there is anything we can do to help, I, and my people, would certainly be willing to do that.”
Trump also said that he “has not heard yet” from the Department of Justice on whether they’ll accept his help in trying to bring calm to the nation. The New York Times reported over the weekend that Trump relayed a message to Attorney General Merrick Garland: “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?”
Adding to Fox News that he thought “they would want the same thing” since it is a “very dangerous time for our country,” Trump then complained about the “sneak attack” by the FBI while again suggesting agents planted evidence. “They could take anything they want, and put anything they want in,” he stated.
Still, Trump claimed he and his followers would do everything possible to ease tensions across the nation.
“People are so angry at what is taking place,” Trump declared. “Whatever we can do to help—because the temperature has to be brought down in the country. If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen. The people of this country are not going to stand for another scam.”
Notably, the online interview with Trump took place the same morning that the hosts of his favorite morning show begged him to call off his supporters threatening the FBI.
“With all of these threats going around, it would ultimately be great if the former president—who has always been a great supporter of law enforcement, has posed with a thousand police departments coast to coast—it would be great if he called for an end to the violent rhetoric against federal law enforcement, and in particular the FBI that was just doing their job,” Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy said.