(LifeSiteNews) — In former U.S. President Donald Trump’s first interview since the unprecedented FBI raid on his Florida home last week, he said “there is tremendous anger in the country” and argued that tensions must dissipate or “terrible things are going to happen.”
Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview Monday morning that he would “do whatever” possible “to help the country” after the FBI executed a search warrant last week on his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida.
New Trump interview just dropped
Trump ‘will do whatever’ he can to ‘help the country’ after FBI raid: ‘Temperature has to be brought down’https://t.co/GkY5cQopMZ
— Rosary Extremist Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 15, 2022
Trump’s comments to Fox mirror a private message he reportedly sent to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland just before the raid, in which he said, “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?” Garland has admitted he personally authorized the decision to seek a search warrant against the former president.
RELATED: ‘Witch hunt’: AG Merrick Garland says he approved FBI raid on Trump’s residence
In the Monday interview, Trump suggested that the raid has pushed the country closer to a breaking point.
“The country is in a very dangerous position,” he told the outlet. “There is tremendous anger, like I’ve never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one — years of scams and witch hunts, and now this.”
“There has never been a time like this where law enforcement has been used to break into the house of a former president of the United States, and there is tremendous anger in the country — at a level that has never been seen before, other than during very perilous times,” Trump continued.
The former president, who headlined the Dallas, Texas CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) event just days before the FBI raid, added, “If there is anything we can do to help, I, and my people, would certainly be willing to do that.”
“[T]he temperature has to be brought down in the country,” he said. “If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen.”
Fox News Digital pointed out that federal agencies have released a bulletin after the FBI raid warning law enforcement of an alleged spike in “’violent threats’ against law enforcement, judiciary and government personnel.”
The outlet also noted that “[g]eneral calls” for “civil war” and “armed rebellion” have allegedly ramped up on social media platforms after the raid on Trump’s residence.
Trump’s interview with Fox came after he reacted to the FBI raid in a series of posts on his social media platform Truth Social since Monday.
In one post, Trump blasted a report by The Washington Post that suggested that FBI agents had sought “[c]lassified documents relating to nuclear weapons” at Trump’s residence.
“Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more,” he said, adding that the “[s]ame sleazy people” were “involved.”
On Monday, Trump told Fox News Digital that the “people of this country are not going to stand for another scam.”
The FBI search warrant was unsealed after a filing by the Department of Justice last week, revealing that Trump is under investigation for alleged violations of the Espionage Act and the obstruction of justice.
Trump himself had called for “the immediate release” of the warrant, “even though they have been drawn up by radical left Democrats and possible future political opponents.”
READ: Trump investigated under Espionage Act, obstruction of justice unsealed FBI raid warrant shows
On Friday, former federal prosecutor and current National Review contributing editor Andrew McCarthy told the Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan that he believes the FBI conducted the raid with a “closet agenda” to “get” Trump on charges related to the “Stop the Steal” rally that turned into a riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“I think they are mainly trying to make a case on Trump related to January 6, and I think that if you look at the timeline of what they’ve done in the six weeks in which this Mar-a-Lago search is included, that becomes clear,” he said.