OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News host Jesse Watters has a terrifying theory about why former President Donald Trump is being treated the way he has been in the courts.
On Thursday, the host referenced the Colorado Supreme Court decision to keep Trump off the 2024 Republican primary ballot, and presumably the general election ballot should he be the nominee, as an example of what he believes is Democrats attempting to provoke Trump supporters into committing criminal acts.
“Five years after the Civil War, pro-slavery Democrats filled the halls of Congress, and 15 years later, pro-slavery Confederates actually flipped the House – 51 former Confederate soldiers or officials were elected into office,” he said. “Even the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, an arch-secessionist, landed a seat in Congress.
“Another Confederate rebel, Lucius Lamar – great name – who literally drafted the Missouri secession plan, went on to serve as interior secretary and was later appointed to the Supreme Court,” the host said.
“But how is that possible? Because all week we’ve been hearing how the Constitution bans insurrectionists from office. The 14th Amendment. How would Confederate soldiers be allowed to serve in government but not Donald Trump?” he said.
“Well, it turns out Congress eviscerated the 14th Amendment 150 years ago because President Ulysses S Grant believed national unity and reconciliation after the Civil War was more important than holding a grudge,” the host said. “This law has been hollowed out and has been sitting on the back burner for years. Well, that is until Donald Trump came along.
“Every time Trump’s arrested, he becomes more powerful in the eyes of the voters. What’s going to happen when they take him off the ballot? They’re turning Trump into the greatest political underdog America’s ever witnessed. They’re setting up the greatest comeback story in American political history,” he said.
“They say they’re protecting us from danger, but Trump’s not a danger to us, he’s a danger to them,” he said. “And Americans are starting to ask themselves why. It feels like the left wants violence because that’s where this is going. We’re being baited, so their actions are justified. That’s how it feels. The more the left overplays their hand, the scarier this gets.”
Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) had a similar prediction when he spoke to Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
Democrats want to “remove” Donald Trump and if he’s not removed, there will be a civil war pic.twitter.com/MkODtM4ni7
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) December 22, 2023
The former Speaker was not talking about only the 2024 election when he appeared on the Fox News show “The Ingraham Angle, but the entire future of elections because of the case.
“I think this is potentially catastrophic,” he said. “1,360,000 Coloradans voted for Donald Trump in the last election. Four lawyers want to block him from being on the ballot. That means, basically, for every 340,000 Coloradans who voted for Trump, one lawyer is stopping them. That’s a level of establishment arrogance that is not sustainable.
“The last great effort like this was the 10 states that refused to put Abraham Lincoln on the ballot in 1860,” the former Speaker said. “The American people are not going to tolerate, and I hope the Supreme Court fully understands. The American people are not going to tolerate being told that they are not allowed to have a choice for who they want to have as president.
“I mean, look at what has happened to America with this open border. That in and of itself is its own type of insurrection against sovereignty, against the rule of law. So is this not a natural reaction if this is the precedent they set?” the host said.
“Yes,” the former Speaker said. “Look, Biden’s illegal immigration policy, which leads to Biden’s illegal immigrants, is a disaster, and it’s deliberate. It’s not — there is not a failure on the border.
“There is a deliberate policy on the border to maximize the number of people who come in. The next stage will be for the left to demand that they be allowed to vote even though they are here illegally. You can see the whole process,” he said. “And that’s why we are, I think, moving dangerously close to a really genuine confrontation over the very nature of America.”
