Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, is of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
The rule of law, including the media’s right to speak freely for us and criticize our leaders, is at stake this election. The risk comes from Donald Trump, the candidate whose brand has become revenge and retaliation against anyone who opposes him.
A free press is vital to a free people. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a 1786 letter to James Currie, his daughter’s physician: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
Why? Because ordinary Americans are busy with their lives and their survival. So much of the burden of speaking out in an effort to keep the government honest is carried for all of us by journalists. It’s also done, of course, by those who have the ability to use their voices on social media, in letters to editors and in other forums.
Trump has talked of terminating the Constitution. It includes, of course, the First Amendment’s protections for individuals’ speech and for the press. He’s threatened to investigate MSNBC, the cable news outlet that criticizes him regularly. Trump, mimicking Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s catchwords for those he slated for elimination, called the network an “ enemy of the people.”
On June 5, Trump told Fox News that he “would have ‘every right’ to go after his adversaries.” The next night, it happened again when Dr. Phil suggested to Trump that if re-elected, “ you don’t have time to get even.” Trump agreed to disagree: “[R]evenge does take time. ... And sometimes revenge can be justified, Phil. I have to be honest.”
History, Yale professor Jason Stanley has noted, is riddled with moments when the people, to their eternal regret, have disbelieved the threats of would-be authoritarians. “Believe what they say,” Stanley told The Associated Press. Trump “is literally telling you he’s going to use the apparatus of the state to target his political opponents.”
Indeed the former president has promised, if re-elected, to weaponize the Justice Department against his enemies, including President Joe Biden. That threat is built on his conspiracy theory that Trump’s May 30 conviction on all 34 felony counts was Biden’s doing.
Nonsense, experts have answered. History professor Allan Lichtman told USA Today’s fact-checkers that “[t]here is not a shred of evidence that Biden has anything to do with this prosecution.” Law professor and former prosecutor Kimberly Wehle called Trump’s attempt to blame Biden for a local district attorney’s decision making “obviously, blatantly false.”
That’s never stopped Trump from trying to intimidate his enemies. “If you come after me,” he famously said, “I will come after you.” If re-elected, he says, he will have members of the 117th Congress’s Jan. 6 committee indicted. The televised summer 2022 hearings, which informed the American people about Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, led up to MAGA underperformance in competitive midterm races.
But that was far from the end of the story. Trump has used the support of enablers to claw back. Most recently, following Trump’s conviction in New York, it quickly became de rigueur for Trump’s enablers to express blood thirst for prosecuting Democrats in retribution.
As The New York Times wrote, “What is different now is the range of Republicans who are saying [that like-kind] retaliation is necessary.” Barbara McQuade, the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, responded sharply:
As all Americans should know, vengeance is an improper motive in our criminal justice system. Prosecution based on politics would distort the very concept of justice.
There are at least two obvious problems with the MAGA right’s “fight fire with fire” mentality. First, Trump’s conviction was of his own making, a long overdue reckoning with the rule of law after a lifetime of rule breaking. A jury of 12 ordinary citizens found him guilty of criminally covering up his corruption of the 2016 election.
Second, first responders don’t fight fire with fire; they use water. More application of the law is in order, not less. Even so, these enablers are normalizing lawlessness, including political prosecutions in the future and threats to the freedom of the press.
It is up to common-sense Americans to answer. Our ballots are our power. Preserving our rights to a free press and avoiding government by retribution will depend on getting out to vote in force this November. Vengeance may be Trump’s, but liberty is ours to keep.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.