Donald Trump continues to promote conspiracy theories about his rivals while threatening to imprison them.
In the past four days, Donald Trump has made a series of belligerent remarks calling for Democratic leaders to be arrested en masse, and has repeatedly given credence to a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election, calling it "the greatest political crime in history of our country."
Trump has spent the better part of the past week demanding the arrests of prominent Democrats, in a callback to the "lock her up" refrain Trump used against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump has long claimed without evidence that President Barack Obama ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigations to spy on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. On Wednesday, Trump demanded payback against Obama, Clinton, and former Vice President Joe Biden for their supposed crimes.
His statement came in response to an anonymous Twitter user's reference to a conspiracy theory that U.S. intelligence agencies tried to sabotage Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
"The highest ranking members of the FBI , NSA and CIA were not only spying on Trump- They were trying to subvert his election win with #FakeIntelligence and a #FakeInvestigation," the Twitter user GirlBot posted on the social media site.
Trump shared the anonymous user's tweet to his 87 million followers, and added an all-caps demand to "do something about this."
In a Fox Business interview with Maria Bartiromo Thursday morning, Trump demanded that Attorney General William Barr press charges against top Democrats.
"Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes — the greatest political crime in history of our country — then we'll get little satisfaction," Trump said. "And that includes Obama and that includes Biden."
"Why isn't Hillary Clinton being indicted?" Trump asked angrily toward the end of the interview.
Since Trump's release from the Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday evening, some White House staffers have wondered if his erratic behavior may be a result of the medications he is taking as part of his treatment for COVID-19.
Trump's treatment includes taking dexamethasone, "a steroid that can cause mood swings and can give a false level of energy and a sense of euphoria."
In an opinion piece for NBC News, author Sarah Klein wrote about her own experience with "'roid rage" while receiving a high dose of steroids during her pregnancy. "I feel like I want to kill my husband once a day," she told her doctor after being put on the medication.
"I'm lucky I wasn't on Twitter then, because I'm sure I would have tweeted off a firestorm," Klein wrote. "I remember one night I stayed up till dawn, writing what I was sure was a brilliant treatise on marriage — on mine in particular. Today, I am so grateful that in my haste I lost the gargantuan document. I fear it would have revealed the workings of a madwoman."
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
