Former President Donald Trump has long used the social media platform Truth Social to criticize anyone he views as an enemy, or a threat to his reputation.
Ahead of the start of his New York hush money trial on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records, the MAGA hopeful urged his supporters to turn out in droves to protest the case against him.
A few days later, on April 23, the former president wrote via Truth Social that presiding Judge Juan Merchan is a "'highly conflicted' overseer of a 'kangaroo court.'"
READ MORE: 'History is repeating itself': House Dem warns GOP laying groundwork for another January 6
Per a Thursday USA Today report, Trump's "rhetoric is inspiring widespread calls for violence."
MAGA fans "swiftly replied to his post with a blitz of attacks on Merchan," according to the report, and "the comments soon turned ugly," as some devoted Trump supporters "called for Merchan and other judges hearing cases against Trump to be killed."
One social media user wrote, "Treason is a hangable offense."
Another said, "They should all be executed."
USA Today reports:
In a review of commenters’ posts on three pro-Trump websites, including the former president’s own Truth Social platform, Reuters documented more than 150 posts since March 1 that called for physical violence against the judges handling three of his highest-profile cases – two state judges in Manhattan and one in Georgia overseeing a criminal case in which Trump is accused of illegally seeking to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
The newspaper also notes:
The Gateway Pundit, a website influential in the pro-Trump community, is also a frequent venue for Trump-inspired violent rhetoric. 'These judges and lawyers should HANG for perpetuating these fraud cases,' a commenter wrote on April 16, suggesting the executions would be 'an example for future generations of judges and lawyers.'
READ MORE: 'Ready to start another insurrection’: Gaetz support for Trump echoes Proud Boys order
Former New York Police Department Director of Intelligence Mitchell Silber, according to the report, "compared the Trump supporters now calling for violence against judges to the Capitol rioters who believed they were following Trump’s 'marching orders' on Jan. 6, 2021."
Silber emphasized, "This is just the 2023-2024 iteration of that phenomenon. Articulating these ideas is the first step along the pathway of mobilizing to violence."
USA Today's full report is available here.
