Right-wing commentators are praising former President Donald Trump for managing to “keep his mouth shut” and “remaining completely silent” after President Joe Biden’s June 27 debate performance, which triggered widespread concern about Biden’s fitness for office and ability to win reelection.

“Donald Trump has run the most disciplined campaign, maybe, over the last 25 years,” Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said on July 3. “The fact that he is laying out during this whole news cycle shows a discipline at a whole new level.”

That strategically silent, disciplined Trump does not exist. Since the debate, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly promoted calls from his supporters to jail his perceived political enemies for “treason” and other purported crimes.

On Sunday, Trump “ReTruthed” a post calling for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to face a “televised military tribunal” for her purported “treason.”

He also “ReTruthed” a post stating that 15 current or former lawmakers, including Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), “SHOULD BE GOING TO JAIL.”

Trump also “ReTruthed” a post urging him to “BRING DOWN THE ENTIRE SOROS FAMILY AND ALL THESE TREASONOUS TRAITORS THAT HE FUNDS” as part of a “COUP AGAINST AMERICA.”

And Trump “ReTruthed” a post describing Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the former president’s New York hush-money trial, as a “corrupt globalist judge” and called for Merchan to be “removed and charged.”

The latter three posts were from accounts that promote QAnon, continuing the former president’s habit of using his Truth Social platform to amplify the phraseology and adherents of a conspiracy theory which calls for mass violence directed at his foes. Indeed, Trump also once again “ReTruthed” a post using the QAnon slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.”

At a Friday rally, Trump also called for the release of rioters who had been prosecuted for storming the U.S. Capitol in response to his 2020 defeat, saying, “Free the J6 hostages now. They should free them now for what they’ve gone through.” The Associated Press also noted that “Trump repeated several of the false claims he made” during Thursday’s debate in his speech.

Pundits and journalists have spent the last eight years predicting Trump would change, or prematurely declaring that he had done so. But he is what he is — an unhinged demagogue with an authoritarian’s view of American institutions. No amount of wishful thinking from his right-wing media allies promoting a new, more disciplined Trump will change that.