Trump backs off 2024 campaign theme threatening political 'retribution'

Donald Trump has made the idea of «retribution» a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign for the White House, telling supporters at rally after rally he would use the full force of the presidency to go after his perceived political enemies.

The rhetoric has stoked alarm among critics that a second Trump term could usher in a wave of authoritarian revenge.

But on Wednesday night, in a sudden change, Trump backed off the message he's spent nearly a year touting on the stump.

«I'm not going to have time for retribution,» Trump said during a town hall with Fox News in Iowa, where he sat down with the network's Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum as his Republican opponents traded attacks on stage at Drake University.

«We're going to make the country so successful again, I'm not going to have time for retribution,» Trump claimed. «And remember this: our ultimate retribution is success.»

Still, he first contended that «a lot of people» would say a retribution effort is «not so bad» or even «normal.»

«Look at what they did,» Trump said as he reiterated complaints about past investigations into him and the 2020 election.

The former president's theme of retribution, which ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reported has roots in old Confederate code, first emerged at last year's Conservative Political Action Conference in early March.

«In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,» he told the crowd.

A few weeks later, in an event billed as his first 2024 campaign rally, Trump repeated those words as he spent much of his 90-minute speech defending Jan. 6 rioters and airing grievances against those he believed had