Trump says jailing Hillary would've been 'terrible' despite 'lock her up' chants during 2016 campaign

PALM BEACH, FLORIDA: On Wednesday, June 5, in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, former President Donald Trump briefly compared how Ultimate Fighting Championship competitors reacted after a bout to how he handled former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, despite hearing "lock her up" chants on the campaign trail in 2016.

Per Breitbart News, the 77-year-old MAGA strongman claimed that imprisoning Hillary Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, would have been a "terrible thing."

What did Donald Trump say on ‘Hannity’ about his 2016 presidential opponent?

The embattled 2024 presumptive GOP presidential nominee attended the UFC 302 event in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday, June 1, following the landmark felony conviction at his hush money trial in New York last week.

The former POTUS told Hannity on his UFC appearance, “What I watched, and it was very — some of the fighters, two, in particular, hated their opponent. And this went on for months. The fight was broadcast out.”

“And they announced the fight. And the hatred was real. It was the real deal. These people have — they have a lot of hatred. And they hated,” Trump continued.

“And then the fight ended, and they’re hugging and kissing in the ring. They’re down, sitting on the — they’re hugging and kissing. It’s like nothing happened,” he remarked. “It happened in two fights. There was tremendous animosity between the two fighters and the other two fighters. And, in the end, that’s what happened.”

Trump then went on a tangent to segue his thoughts on UFC fighters to his previous political campaigns, saying, “And, in a certain way, after we won against Hillary, people would say, 'Lock her up, lock her up.' And I said, wouldn’t it be terrible if I locked up the wife of the former president of the United States, and locked up the former secretary of state? It’s a terrible thing.”

“You’re starting off, you want to bring the country together. I want to bring the country together,” he explained. “And success does bring the country together because we had the most successful economy in the history of our country just prior to COVID. And, even at the end, I got it back. It was an amazing thing.”

The ex-Commander-in-Chief touted his record, claiming, “But we had the most successful economy in history. And I was getting calls from radical left people wanting to meet. And I’m telling you, success, African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, women, men, people with diplomas, people without diplomas, people that went to MIT, Harvard, and Wharton, people that didn’t get out of high school, the most successful economy we have ever had.”

“And people that I would say you call them on the radical left — call it whatever you want, liberal people, progressive people. They were all calling. And they were saying, let’s get together. This is amazing,” Trump remarked.

“Nobody, no — every single group, nobody has ever done better than during that period of time, in my administration, during that period,” he declared. “And they wanted to get together. And it would have happened. We would have happened. It was really something.”

“I’m not sure I would have been able to say to you that there was a way to unify. Success will unify. And I think we’re going to have a tremendous success,” Trump added. “We have to bring it back fast because this country is — we’re a failing nation. We are really a failing nation right now. We’re being laughed at all over the world.”