Donald Trump, the former US president, has stated that, “except for day one,” he will not be “a dictator” if he takes office again in 2019. The former president clarified that he intended to close the US-Mexico border and increase oil drilling through presidential decrees.

The question of whether Trump would ever “abuse power as retribution against anybody” was posed to him on Tuesday during a televised town hall event in Iowa with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

Except on the first day, Trump retorted. “I want to drill, drill, drill and I want to close the border.”

Hannity questioned Trump, stating that he was talking about vengeance. “We adore this man,” the outgoing president chimed in. “You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?” he asks. I uttered, “No, no, no.” aside from the first day. Along with blocking the border, we’re also drilling nonstop. I’m not a tyrant after that.

During their first few days in office, American presidents usually issue a flurry of executive orders, using them to undo the policies of their predecessors and impose as much of their own agenda as they can without getting Congress to approve. President Joe Biden used his authority to revoke almost all of his predecessor’s immigration restrictions and restrict the oil and gas sector before the end of his second day in office, issuing more executive orders than President Trump did during his first two months in office.

More than any other modern president in the same period of time, Biden had issued 37 executive orders by the end of his first week in office. Three months after endorsing Biden for president, the editorial board of the New York Times encouraged him to “ease up on the executive actions,” labelling these orders “a flawed substitute for legislation.”

As of last November, when he made his official presidential announcement, Trump is regarded as the front-runner for the Republican nomination. The actual election is slated for November of next year.

Recent surveys have shown Trump to be ahead of Biden, and Democrats and leftist commentators have cried out that the former president poses a threat to democracy. On Monday, three writers for the New York Times, among them Maggie Haberman, a biographer of President Trump, asserted that a “second term could unleash a darker President Trump,” one who would allegedly use force against demonstrators and exact revenge on his political rivals.

The neoconservative scholar and husband of Victoria Nuland of the State Department, Robert Kagan, the editor of the Washington Post, issued a warning on the same day, stating that “a Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable” and that the 77-year-old Republican will try to establish himself as “president for life” if elected next year.

Republicans, however, have emphasised that Biden has already done a great deal of the things that the Washington Post and New York Times fear Trump would do. In addition to plundering his predecessor’s estate and launching what they claim are politically motivated investigations against him, Trump and his allies have denounced Biden’s Justice Department for charging Trump supporters who demonstrated at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, with excessively harsh penalties.

Hannity questioned Trump earlier in the town hall meeting about his intentions to “abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people.”

“You mean like they’re utilising at the moment?” Trump answered.