Donald Trump’s Extremely Long List of Second-Term Revenge Targets

Everyone from Democratic lawmakers to retired generals and major news networks appear to be in the crosshairs.
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Something you may have picked up on in the last eight years or so is that Donald Trump is obsessed with revenge against the people, places, and things he believes have wronged him. During his first run for office, for example, he spent ample amounts of time musing about imprisoning Hillary Clinton, and in his most recent run for the White House, he vowed, on several occasions, to crush the “enemy within.”

While targets of Trump’s ire may have been able to spend the last several months soothing themselves with the notion that it would be inconceivable for voters to reelect a man who is vocal about his plans for going after fellow Americans, that’s obviously not the way things shook out last week. Instead, Trump cruised to a second term in office. And now, it’s not a question of if the incoming president will make good on his threats for revenge, but when and against whom. “Will Trump retaliate?” Gwenda Blair, who wrote a biography about the Trump family, asked The New York Times. “Of course. The only question is how much will be broad-brush and how much will be targeted.” Which makes the reported fears of the people in Trump’s crosshairs extremely understandable!

Who, exactly, would be within their rights to be sweating buckets—or, more likely, shitting bricks—at the very real possibility of Trump and/or his government allies coming after them? The long list includes:

  • Special counsel Jack Smith (Trump has said he should be “thrown out the country”)
  • Joe Biden (Trump has vowed to appoint “a real special prosecutor to go after” the 46th president and his family)
  • Kamala Harris (Trump has said she should be “prosecuted for her actions” concerning the border)
  • Barack Obama (Trump wants the 44th president tried by “military tribunal”)
  • Former GOP representative Liz Cheney (Trump circulated a post on social media calling her “guilty of treason” and arguing she should also be tried by a “military tribunal,” and separately, said she should have guns “trained on her face”)
  • California senator-elect Adam Schiff (Trump has called the lawmaker the “enemy from within,” and suggested the military should be used against him)
  • Nancy Pelosi (Trump has similarly dubbed the former House Speaker the “enemy from within” and called her “evil, sick, crazy,” and mouthed a word that “starts with a b”)
  • General Mark Milley (Trump suggested last year that the retired Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman should be executed)
  • New York attorney general Letitia James (Trump has called for James to be prosecuted, and one of his allies recently declared in an interview, “Listen here, sweetheart, we’re not messing around this time, and we will put your fat ass in prison for conspiracy against rights”)
  • Justice Arthur Engoron (Trump has similarly called for Engoron, who presided over James’s case against the ex-president, to be prosecuted, and called him a “corrupt…political hack”)
  • Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg (yes, Trump also wants Bragg, who brought the hush money case against him, prosecuted)
  • “Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials” involved in the 2020 election (Trump has called for them to receive “long term prison sentences”)
  • Mark Zuckerberg (Trump said during the 2024 race “we are watching him closely” and threatened the Meta founder, saying he could “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he broke any laws)
  • Comcast (Trump has said the company, which owns NBC News and MSNBC, should be investigated for “treason”)
  • ABC News (following his debate with Harris, Trump similarly declared the company should have its license taken away for fact-checking him)
  • CBS News (Trump said the company should lose its license because he didn’t like the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Harris)
  • Journalists (Trump has vowed to jail reporters who don’t reveal their sources on stories he believes concern national security, and “joked” that the threat of prison rape would get them to give up such information)
  • “A sinister group of deep-state bureaucrats, Silicon Valley tyrants, left-wing activists, and depraved corporate news media” (who Trump claimed comprise a “left-wing censorship regime” and that as president he would “order the Department of Justice to investigate” them and “to aggressively prosecute any and all crimes identified”)
  • Representatives Jamie Raskin and Bennie Thompson, senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, former representative Adam Kinzinger, and former vice president Mike Pence (Trump reshared a post calling for them to be jailed)

“He’s erratic and has the attention span of a seven-year-old,” Harry Litman, a former Clinton DOJ official, told the Times of Trump. “But his thirst for revenge against those he views as his current antagonists is very real, and there’s no reason to think he would be deterred by legal niceties.” (Trump’s office did not respond to the Times’ request for comment concerning whether he would make good on campaign revenge threats.)