Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Trump predicts America will cease to exist in three years in rambling Newsmax interview

The former US president also claimed Joe Biden is ‘worse than Obama’

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Wednesday 15 September 2021 06:01 EDT
Comments
Trump predicts America will ‘come to an end’ in three years

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Former president Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that the United States would come to an end in the next three years, without explaining what that might mean in practice.

The US “has gone really downhill in the last eight months like nobody has ever seen before”, Mr Trump said during an appearance on Sean Spicer’s show on conservative news channel Newsmax.

“[If we] go to these elections coming up in ‘22 and ‘24, we are not going to have a country left,” he said, falsely claiming that the 2020 election “was rigged” and “we are not gonna have a country left in three years”.

Immediately after this statement Spicer, who served as the former president’s press secretary, hastily ended the interview with: “You’ve been very generous with your time, thank you for that.”

Newsmax is facing a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems for allegedly spreading misinformation about fraud involving the company’s voting machines in the 2020 presidential elections. Newsmax has defended its coverage, saying the network “simply reported on allegations made by well-known public figures”.

Over the last few months, Mr Trump has aggressively criticised president Joe Biden for withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan. He continued to attack Mr Biden on Tuesday.

“He [Biden] was going to be the great unifier... He is not a unifier, he is the opposite, he is worse than Obama. Of course, Obama is probably running the government now according to many,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump is reportedly aspiring to run for the president’s office again in 2024. Despite not making a formal announcement, he has kept the door open for a presidential run through crowdfunding and rallies, and hinted repeatedly that the only reason he isn’t announcing already is because of campaign financing rules.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner in August, Spicer claimed that Trump will run for office again. “A couple of months ago, I wasn’t sure. Now, there needs to be something that will keep him out,” he said.

Hinting at this, Spicer said: “Mr Biden has sought to kick off 11 of your appointees to service academies, including my appointment to the US Naval Academy. If you ran for president again and won, excluding the statutory boards, would you kick off every Biden presidential appointee?”

The former president responded that he might “because what he [Mr Biden] did is unprecedented”.

“We have great people on the boards, for them to be thrown off — it never happened before,” Mr Trump said. “They [the Biden administration] are vicious people, that’s what they are good at. They use prosecutors all over the place, local prosecutors, federal prosecutors and yet Hunter Biden [Joe Biden’s second son] is fine.”

He added: “What they are doing is horrible, these are great people, including you Sean. It is very disrespectful for our country.”

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in