# Donald Trump — "I can do whatever I want, if I want" > [!quote] "I could have done very bad things to Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Hussein Obama. ... I thought it was inappropriate to do so because you have to treat the office of the presidency with respect. ... I can do whatever I want, if I want." > — Donald Trump, Oval Office remarks to reporters, October 7, 2026 ## Context A Fox News correspondent asked Trump in the Oval Office on October 7, 2026 whether he expected Democrats to impeach him if they won back Congress in the November midterms. Trump answered by listing three predecessors and opponents he said he had refrained from acting against — [[Hillary Clinton]], [[Joe Biden]], and [[Barack Obama]] — framing that restraint as deference to the office rather than as a limit on his authority. He then noted that he had been impeached twice anyway ([[Trump First Impeachment]], [[Trump Second Impeachment]]), added "They've done some very bad things," and closed with the operative clause: the forbearance was a choice, and it remains revocable. ## Why this matters The sentence is unusual among retribution-era receipts because it does not threaten anything. It asserts a **capacity** — the president's power over his named opponents is described as unbounded in principle and merely unexercised in practice, with the only stated constraint being his own respect for the office. That is the [[Trump Retribution Doctrine]] stated as constitutional theory rather than as a grievance: not "they will be prosecuted" but "nothing stops me." Two features make it a marker rather than a repetition: - **The restraint is offered as evidence of virtue.** The claim is not that the law forbids acting against a former president, but that Trump declined to. Framed that way, prosecutorial discretion over political rivals becomes a personal favor the president extends and can withdraw. - **It is tied to the midterm stakes.** The remark answers a question about impeachment — i.e. about what happens if the opposition regains oversight power. The implicit sequence runs: they will use their power against me, so my forbearance toward them is contingent. It belongs in the same lineage as [[Stephen Miller - will not be questioned]] and [[Stephen Miller - iron laws of the world]], but spoken by the officeholder himself and about domestic opponents rather than foreign law. See [[Might Makes Right Doctrine]]. ## Verification - **The New Republic**, October 8, 2026 — places the remarks in the Oval Office on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, prompted by a reporter's question about Democratic impeachment plans; renders the clause "I can do whatever I want, if I want." - **Raw Story**, October 2026 — same date and setting; identifies the questioner as Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy; renders "To this moment, I can do whatever I want if I want," plus "I could have done very bad things to Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Hussein Obama" and "They've done some very bad things." - **Benzinga**, October 8, 2026 — independent confirmation of the date and the impeachment/midterm context; renders the fuller "I certainly, even to this moment, I can do whatever I want, if I want," and the identical "I thought it was inappropriate to do so because you have to treat the office of the presidency with respect." > [!warning] Rendering variance > Outlets agree on the substance, the date, the setting and the operative clause, but differ on the words immediately preceding it — "I certainly, even to this moment…" (Benzinga) versus "To this moment…" (Raw Story). The headline clause quoted on this page is the wording common to all three. The three "very bad things" sentences are also rendered by some outlets as one list and by others as three separate sentences naming Clinton, Biden and Obama in turn. Checked 2026-10-08; no official White House transcript located at that time. ## The October 7 bookends Heather Cox Richardson's October 7, 2026 letter noted that the remark fell on two anniversaries. On October 7, 2016, the [[Access Hollywood Tape]] was published: "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything" ([[Donald Trump - grab them]]). On October 7, 2021, the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] majority released its interim staff report *Subverting Justice*, which found Trump had "grossly abused the power of the presidency" in pressing the Justice Department to overturn the 2020 election (see [[Stop the Steal Timeline]]). Ten years apart, the same claim: the rules that bind other people do not bind him. ## Related quotes - [[Donald Trump - seditious behavior punishable by death]] — the 2025 entry, power asserted against speech. - [[Stephen Miller - iron laws of the world]] — the same doctrine applied to international law. - [[Stephen Miller - will not be questioned]] — the first-term, defensive version of the unbounded-power claim. - Collected in [[Might Makes Right Doctrine]].