WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump issued an extraordinary warning to political opponents on Monday, telling a right-wing website that “it would be very bad, very bad” if his supporters in the military, police and a motorcycle group were provoked into getting “tough.”

Trump uttered the remark in an interview with Breitbart News. It came, according to Breitbart, as Trump was arguing that “the left” plays politics in a more “vicious” manner than the pro-Trump right even though “the tough people” are on Trump’s side.

“I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,” Trump said.

The quote went largely unnoticed by the U.S. media until the Star tweeted it on Thursday, when it prompted alarm and criticism.

“This is how an authoritarian talks. Happening right in front of us,” Brendan Nyhan, a University of Michigan public policy professor who co-founded an initiative monitoring the state of U.S. democracy, said on Twitter.

“So Donald Trump is threatening to unleash state violence (cops, military) and extrajudicial violence (bikers) against his political opponents. Cool republic we had. Shame about the new ownership,” tweeted Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a vocal Trump critic.

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“In which the president of the United States threatens street violence against his political opponents,” the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen tweeted. “What happens if Trump loses in 2020? Is that the ‘certain point?’”

Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been convicted of several crimes, testified to Congress in February: “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”

Trump made another veiled suggestion of retribution from the military, police and Bikers for Trump at a campaign rally in November. After mocking Antifa protesters as weaklings — “you see these little arms,” he joked — he said, “And then you see the clubs in their hands. You know, they’re tough guys, right. Where are the Bikers for Trump? Where are the police? Where are the military? Where are the ICE? Where are the Border Patrol? No. No. We’ve taken a lot. We’ve taken a lot, folks.”

Bikers for Trump, which has more than 300,000 followers on Facebook, is not a criminal biker gang.

Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox, a chainsaw artist described in one 2017 newspaper profile as “exceedingly polite,” offered in advance of Trump’s inauguration in 2017 to form a “wall of meat” between the president and protesters. He said, though, that he expected a peaceful gathering. While group members have had verbal confrontations with anti-Trump protesters, there have not been reports of major violence.

“I think it’s more of a hope than a threat,” liberal MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell tweeted about Trump’s comments. “Trump’s supporters aren’t as bad & violent & criminal as he hopes they are. They peacefully watched President Obama inaugurated twice. They’ll do that again for the next Democrat. Let’s not help him fan his imaginary flame.”

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Trump met with some of the Bikers for Trump at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey in August. In November, Cox travelled to Florida and made unfounded allegations of election fraud. In December, Cox and his German shepherd stood outside the courthouse where former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn was to be sentenced for lying to the FBI, with Cox telling Mother Jones magazine he was “here to make sure [Flynn’s] family is not assaulted or intimidated.”

Trump also endorsed violence against protesters at some of his rallies in 2016. In August 2016, the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent noted, he used a hinting formulation similar to the one he used with Breitbart — saying it would be “a horrible day” if gun owners were to take action against Hillary Clinton if she tried to take their guns.

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know. But I tell you what, that’ll be a horrible day,” he said then.

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