U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr's Friday comments related to Donald Trump's reported threats to execute a White House leaker have sparked alarm and concern on social media.
In an interview with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins on Friday night, Barr was asked if he recalled when the former president said the person should be executed who leaked information about him going to a bunker during the protests over George Floyd's death outside the White House in 2020. .
"I remember him being very mad about that. I actually don't remember him saying 'executing,' but I wouldn't dispute it," Barr said. "The president would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would have actually carried it out."
Collins then asked Barr if Trump would say things like that on other occasions.
"I think people sometimes took him too literally and he would say things similar to that, in occasions, to blow off steam, but I wouldn't take him literally every time he did it. At the end of the day, it wouldn't 't be carried out and you could talk sense into him."
During the interview, Barr also doubled down on his comments that he will vote for Trump over President Joe Biden in 2024, and said, "I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the Biden administration."
However, last year, Barr told Collins about Trump's alleged role in the 2020 election interference probe, "Someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn't be anywhere near the Oval Office."
In response to Barr's CNN interview, Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat, posted to X, formerly Twitter, "So the AG of the UNITED STATES heard a sitting President speak of killing people & it was no BIG deal to him??? Bill Barr said of course I'd vote for Trump again...he's not the threat...it's the liberals and their appliance AGENDA!"
"'At the end of the day, it wouldn't be carried out.' Maybe it wasn't carried out because at the end of the day, he figured he'd probably go to jail if he did," former FBI Special Agent and attorney Asha Rangappa also posted to X.