Former President Donald Trump recently boasted to Fox News host Bret Baier about freeing non-violent inmate Alice Johnson. He was told that she would have been executed under his plan for convicted drug dealers.
“You’ve said you’d be in favor of the death penalty for drug dealers. Still the case?” asked Baier during the interview.
Trump replied, “That’s the only way you’re gonna stop it,” arguing that “a drug dealer will kill approximately 500 people during the course of his or her life.”
Baier then noted that Trump was “a big proponent of the First Step Act, the criminal justice reform” and said:
“Critics of that law point out that 13,500 people have been released, about 12% of them have committed serious crimes after that. Joel Francisco was serving a life sentence for selling crack cocaine. He was released in 2019, allegedly stabbing a man to death. Rearrested. Paul Moore, drug trafficker, fatally shot a rival, received a reduced sentence.”
“But I focused on non-violent crime. As an example, a woman who you know very well was in jail. She had 24 more years to serve, she served for 22 years. Alice,” said Trump, referring to Johnson, a convicted cocaine trafficker he freed and then pardoned at the end of his presidency.
After Baier pointed out, “But she’d be killed under your plan,” a confused Trump responded, “Huh?”
“As a drug dealer,” Baier explained.
“No, no. No. Under my, oh, under that? Uhh, it would depend on the severity,” Trump claimed, to which Baier noted, “She’s technically a former drug dealer. She had multi-million dollar cocaine ring.”
After some thought, Trump said, “Any drug dealer.”
“So even Alice Johnson?” asked Baier, prompting Trump to declare, “She can’t do it, ok? By the way, if that was there, she wouldn’t be killed, it would start as of now.”
Baier laughed and said, “No, I know, but your policy–”
“Starting now,” Trump reiterated, as he made a chopping motion with his hand. “But 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. She wouldn’t have been a dealer.”
