Remember when Trump promised widespread prosecutions if he won the election?

In September 2024, Donald Trump made a promise to American voters in the heat of his 2024 campaign run. Trump vowed he would punish anyone caught cheating on election day.

Trump promised that he would carry out what he said would be a major crackdown on those who cheated in the upcoming election after he won it according to a report from Salon.

Trump said that after his victory there would be a wave of arrests and prosecutions at a level the country has never seen according to a Truth Social post that he published on September 8th. 

“CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely,” the former president began. 

“I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump added. “It was a Disgrace to our Nation!”

“Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law,” Trump continued. 

It is important to point out that, at the time, Trump had recently admitted to losing the 2020 Election to Joe Biden during a podcast with Lex Friedman where he stated he “lost by a whisker” according to NBC News. 

“I was told if I got 63 million, which is what I got the first time, 'You would win. You can't not win.' And I got millions more votes than that and lost by a whisker," Trump told Friedman about his election loss.

Photo Credit: Screenshot YouTube @lexfridman

NBC News reported that Trump received 74 million votes in 2020 compared to the 84 million that Joe Biden received in the election. 

However, despite Trump’s seeming admission that he did indeed lose the 2020 Election, it appeared that he wasn't giving up the fiction that the election was stolen from him by Biden and his allies, which was a point that he alluded to in his September 8th Truth Social message.

Trump noted that there would be “long term prison sentences” for those caught cheating in the 2024 election so that the “Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”

“We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T! Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials,” Trump explained. 

“Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country,” the former president concluded. 

What prompted Trump to write such a malicious message wasn't clear at the time, but it was notable that his remarks were on brand for his particular style of social media rant, though this time what he wrote was far more worrying than other posts have been in the past. 

Salon noted that the threats posed by a second Trump presidency had prompted some prominent Republicans to speak out against the former president, including former Vice President Richard Cheney, who endorsed Kamala Harris over Trump.  

"In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump," Cheney explained in a statement. Whether or not Cheney's endorsement will help Harris in November is unknown, but it isn't a good sign for Trump's campaign. 

Now that Trump has been elected again by the American people, his talk of stolen elections and likely possible prosecution for cheaters in the 2024 election has all but disappeared from his rhetoric.

The President-Elect has been busy preparing for his second term in office, which has seen him shift away from posting about domestic politics and toward international politics and making tariff threats.