Real estate magnate and attention-seeker Donald Trump doubled down Monday on his recommendation that Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who leaked classified information about government snooping programs, should face execution for his actions.
"I think he's a terrible traitor, and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country? You know what we used to do to traitors, right?" Trump asked the hosts of "Fox and Friends" during a call-in interview.
Fox host Eric Bolling answered the question for Trump.
"Well, we used to kill them, Donald," he said.
Trump similarly floated the idea of capital punishment for Snowden last week, saying that "spies in the old days used to be executed."
Federal authorities charged Snowden with two counts of espionage and one count of theft of government property last month. While the death penalty has been given for espionage cases in the past -- the Rosenberg case was tried under an espionage statute before the married couple landed in the electric chair for handing state secrets over to the Soviet Union -- Snowden faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted.
Trump has a history of disdain for secret leakers. After W. Mark Felt revealed himself to be "Deep Throat," Bob Woodward's Watergate source, in 2005, Trump told a studio audience on Fox that he believed Felt should have been arrested.
"I think he's disgusting. I think he's scum," Trump said. "I don't care how old he is, how sick he is, I think he ought to be arrested. He was an FBI agent, essentially, and he was ratting on the president."
After President Barack Obama's reelection last year, Trump took to Twitter and called for a "revolution in this country." He later deleted the tweets.
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