Gina Grad, who reads the news on the podcast, next mentioned a Fox News story about a music festival facing pressure to drop Toby Keith because he performed at Trump’s inauguration. Happily, Ribfest organizers in Naperville, Illinois, are standing by the musician. “That's the way they act,” Prager said of the protesters, whose behavior he ascribed to the left. “If you are on the right you should be destroyed. Not your ideas. You.” (Keith will not “be destroyed” if Ribfest disinvites him, nor are the protesters likely to take any additional action against him either way.)

On a lot of talk-radio shows, Prager’s remarks would’ve gone unchallenged. But The Adam Carolla Show, while right-leaning and populist in its frequently politically incorrect analysis—and friendly with Prager, who has many good qualities to go with his bad ones—is neither partisan nor inclined to overlook contradictions when regulars notice them. All understand that neither ideological tribe has a monopoly on indecency. Thus Bryan Bishop, who does sound effects and acts as an on-air sidekick, chimed in, “Wait a second, wasn't there just a story in the news literally last week—Dennis, you would know this because you do a daily show on this stuff. Didn't Trump just say, when there was someone causing problems, ‘Do you want me to ruin that guy's career?’ I remember that quote very clearly.”

Prager said he was unfamiliar with the story.

“I don't follow his tweets as much as the news media,” Prager explained. “I follow what Trump does much more than what he says. And people get blinded by his words. The press fixates on his tweets. I fixate on his cabinet, I fixate on his foreign policy, because what a president does is a little bit more important than what he tweets.” (Prager in 2011: “There is no place in the Republican Party for profane public speech. You cannot stand for small government without standing for big people.”)

In fact, Trump made the threat in an official meeting, as Prager learned when the show found the clip:

Prager ultimately clung to the suggestion that Trump was probably just joking in his remarks. But one hardly needs to lean on this example to know that Trump is a frequently cruel man who tries to ruin people in ways that go far beyond getting them disinvited from music festivals, to use the example Prager cited as an example.

“Revenge is sweet and not fattening.” - Alfred Hitchcock — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2014

In “Donald Trump’s Cruel Streak,” I recounted the story of the late Freddy Trump, the president’s older brother, who died an alcoholic in 1983. After college, Freddy had tried to join the family business. Later, he became an airplane pilot, showing talent in the profession. When his heavy drinking posed a safety risk, he quit, and wound up living in an apartment owned by his father and working on one of his crews, even as his kid brother began to make a name for himself. Here is the conclusion to the family story, as reported in the New York Times:

In 1977, Donald asked Freddy to be the best man at his first wedding, to the Czech model Ivana Winklmayr, an honor Donald said he hoped would be “a good thing for him.” But the drinking continued, and four years later, Freddy was dead. Over the next decades, Donald put the Trump name on skyscrapers, casinos and planes. In 1999, the family patriarch died, and 650 people, including many real estate executives and politicians, crowded his funeral at Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue. But the drama was hardly put to rest. Freddy’s son, Fred III, spoke at the funeral, and that night, his wife went into labor with their son, who developed seizures that led to cerebral palsy. The Trump family promised that it would take care of the medical bills. Then came the unveiling of Fred Sr.’s will, which Donald had helped draft. It divided the bulk of the inheritance, at least $20 million, among his children and their descendants, “other than my son Fred C. Trump Jr.” Freddy’s children sued, claiming that an earlier version of the will had entitled them to their father’s share of the estate, but that Donald and his siblings had used “undue influence” over their grandfather, who had dementia, to cut them out. A week later, Mr. Trump retaliated by withdrawing the medical benefits critical to his nephew’s infant child. “I was angry because they sued,” he explained during last week’s interview.

Trump took revenge on Rosie O’Donnell by waiting until her engagement was announced, then sending this message out to millions of strangers to sabotage her day: