Former President Donald Trump said he will unfreeze a moratorium on the federal death penalty to help fight crime if he returns to the White House.
Trump told DailyMail.com that reinstituting the death penalty would be a first-day priority.
"Of course, I would. I would have executions on major drug dealers," Trump told the outlet. "I would have, perhaps, the raping of a child, the killing of a police officer. I would have executions on the people that violently kill people."
During the Trump administration, 13 federal death row inmates were executed.
In 2021, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used to execute people, a narrower action that has meant no executions under President Joe Biden.
The Justice Department has since pushed for the death penalty against the suspects charged with mass shootings in Pittsburgh and Buffalo.
Trump has vowed to seek executions for drug dealers and cop killers as part of a national crackdown on crime.
Before a campaign event in Michigan last week, it was reported Trump would say he plans to seek the death penalty for those convicted of sexually abusing or trafficking children.
However, the former president held off announcing that. A source with knowledge of the matter told the Independent that Trump decided to wait and make the announcement after the Democrats' convention ended.
During a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border last week, Trump said drug dealers responsible for hundreds of deaths should face capital punishment.
"The average drug dealer kills 500 people during that person's lifetime. I would have no problem with that. If you're going to stop the drug epidemic, you're going to have to have a death penalty," Trump said.
Trump has attacked Democrat presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, former San Francisco and California attorney general, for being soft on crime.
During a 2004 inauguration speech after her election as San Francisco's district attorney, Harris vowed to "never charge the death penalty." She framed her choice as a moral one.
While running in 2010 for California AG, Harris softened her approach and said would "enforce the death penalty as the law dictates."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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