Disgraced ex-Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he’s a proud turncoat who backs former Republican President Donald Trump’s comeback for the White House.
“I call myself a ‘Trump-o-crat’ … His new Republican Party is the party that now stands for and fights for the average working person in America,” Blagojevich, a convicted felon, said during an interview Sunday on 770 WABC’s “The Cats Roundtable.”
But Blagojevich — known in political circles as “Blago” — said he’s also personally returning the favor to Trump, who in February 2020 commuted his 14 year sentence for political corruption — fingered for selling the Senate seat Barack Obama vacated after he was elected president in 2008 to the highest bidder.
He maintained what he did was not criminal, and President Obama refused to commute his sentence.
Trump, who had Blagojevich on his “Apprentice Show” before running for president, set him free.
“Who would have thought? A Republican president, Donald Trump, God bless him, would reach in to rescue me, a Democrat governor — restore my freedom and reunite me with my two daughters and my wife, Patti,” Blagojevich said.
Looking back on his past legal woes, he said he was the first governor in the US to endorse Obama.
“He and I came up in politics in Chicago at the same time, the mid 1990s … I became governor. He became senator two years later,” he said.
“Then he became president-elect. He sent an emissary to me, a union boss who was friendly to both of us … to talk about a political deal in exchange for the appointment of a Senate candidate [Obama] wanted. There was nothing illegal on Obama‘s part. And there was nothing illegal on my part. But he went to the White House for eight years. And I went to the big house for eight years.”
He joked that it was “way better” being governor than “inmate #40892424.”
“I fought back. What they did to me was the beginning of what they’re doing to President Trump … They learned from what they did [to me] and what they got away with: weaponizing prosecutors, criminalizing things that are legal and routine in politics,” Blagojevich said.
He urged Americans to “vote in this election to stop this weaponization of prosecutions. They’re destroying the rule of law and the constitution. This is the politics of Russia and the Soviet Union and banana republics. This is not the politics of what Abraham Lincoln said was ‘The last best hope on Earth’ – the right of the people to choose their [leaders] in open elections that are free and fair,” Blago said.
Meanwhile, Blagojevich said there’s no question that Obama is using his vast influence in the Democratic Party to try to force the 81-year-old Biden, his vice president for eight years, off the ticket instead of running for re-election.
“President Obama is working behind the scenes, using his influence, which is very substantial and significant in the Democratic Party, with constituency groups in the Democratic Party that have a tremendous amount of influence like movie stars. People like George Clooney,” he said.
“He’s [Obama] doing what he can to encourage President Biden to get out of the race because the Democrats are very afraid that Trump is going to beat Biden; and they feel like they have a better chance of winning if Biden isn’t there … Harry Truman used to say – one of the great Democrat presidents – ‘If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.’ This is just another example of how cut-throat politics is, and how backstabbing is oftentimes the rule, not the exception.”
