Barr suggests people may take Trump rhetoric ‘too literally’
Former Attorney General Bill Barr suggested Friday that people may take former President Trump “too literally,” and Trump wouldn't carry out serious actions he threatens against other people.
When CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins asked Barr if he remembered when the former president said the person who leaked information about him going to a bunker during the 2020 protests over George Floyd's death should be executed.
“I remember him being very mad about that. I actually don’t remember him saying 'executing,' but, I, you know, I wouldn’t dispute it,” Barr said, highlighted by Mediaite. “The President would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would have actually carried it out.”
Collins pressed Barr, asking if Trump would say things like that on other occasions.
“I think people sometimes took him too literally and you know, he would say things like, similar to that, in occasions, to blow off steam, but I wouldn’t take him literally every time he did it,” Barr said.
The former attorney general said he wouldn’t take Trump’s threats literally because “at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be carried out.”
The former president's reported threats to execute the person who leaked information about his actions during the protests are not the only time he has argued someone should die.
A president threatening to direct SEAL Team Six to kill a political opponent should be covered by presidential immunity from prosecution, Trump's legal team suggested earlier this year. It's been a refrain in the defense against his 2020 federal election interference case, and the Supreme Court began hearing the argument Thursday. for presidential immunity in the case.
Barr, who served as attorney general for the final two years of Trump’s term in the White House, has endorsed the former president in the upcoming election, despite his criticisms.
He said he would vote for the “Republican ticket” in the November election, which likely will be the presumptive nominee, Trump.