Did Trump say ‘lock her up?’ Former president blames his supporters for infamous chant

Convicted former US President Donald Trump has denied ever calling for his former political rival Hilary Clinton to be arrested, tried and jailed despite chanting “lock her up” at many of his rallies.

On Thursday (30 May) Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business accounts to hide hush money payments made to the adult star Stormy Daniels to keep their affair quiet during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

With Trump facing the prospect of jail time himself, during a bizarre interview on Fox News on Sunday, he appeared to suggest that he had nothing to do with the chants of “lock her up” that were regularly aimed at Clinton during his rallies in his 2016 presidential campaign.

Fox News co-host Will Cain said: “You famously said, regarding Hillary Clinton, ‘Lock her up.’ You declined to do that as president.”

Trump chimed back: “I beat her. It’s easier when you win. And they always said, ‘Lock her up.’ And I could have done it, but I felt it would have been a terrible thing.

“And then this happened to me, so I may feel differently about it. I can’t tell you, I’m not sure I can answer the question.”

Trump continued his nonsensical answer, appearing to blame his supporters and claim that he never said “lock her up”, despite there being plenty of evidence proving he did.

“Hillary Clinton – I didn’t say, ‘Lock her up,’ but the people (Trump supporters), they would say, ‘Lock her up, lock her up.’ OK. Then we won, and I said pretty openly, I’d say, ‘Alright, come on, just relax. Let’s go. We gotta make our country great.’”

Not only did Trump say “lock her up” about his political rival, but he also suggested to his supporters he would hire a special prosecutor to investigate accusations about Clinton’s email use when she served as Barack Obama’s secretary of state.

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