Former President Donald Trump said he was unsure if the American people were “ready” to use the death penalty on drug dealers to address the number of overdose deaths in the country.
Trump previously called for the death penalty to be imposed on drug dealers, saying it was necessary to save lives. Drug overdoses killed over 100,000 Americans in 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I don’t know that this country is ready for it, I just don’t know,” Trump told Fox News anchor Bret Baier in the second part of an interview from the golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, the former president owns. “You know, every time I say it, I’m sorta like, it’s not easy to say death penalty. But remember, this a drug dealer, male or female drug dealer, plenty of female drug dealers, too, a drug dealer will kill approximately 500 people during the course of his or her life.”
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Baier pressed Trump, who signed the First Step Act during his presidency, over the fact some of those who were released later committed violent crimes.
“I focused on non-violent crime,” Trump said, citing the case of Alice Johnson, one of the most prominent people released under the law.
“She wouldn’t have done it if it was death penalty. In other words, if it was death penalty, she wouldn’t have been on that phone call,” Trump said about Johnson. “She wouldn’t have been a dealer. Now, she wasn’t much of a dealer, because she was sort of like, honestly, she got treated terribly. She was treated – she was treated sort of like I get treated. She was treated very unfairly. She got 48 years.”
Trump, though, pointed to China and Singapore as examples of countries that took on their drug problems.
“If you want to stop drugs, there is only one way you are going to stop them,” Trump said. “The death penalty for dealers.”
