I guess I'd put it this way. I think we can agree that it is sensationalistic to report something that won't happen.

I'm not a Trump booster - but I do think these two HN comments are giving him too much power.

Presidents have no power to remove judges. (And everybody knows it - especially judges.) Wishing that his friends in Congress would help him out by launching impeachment hearings won't make it happen -- mainly because it would need something like 7 Democratic votes in the Senate to actually succeed. (So "threatening" a judge... does nothing. You might as well stand in a field and say "Ooh, I wish you weren't a judge any more!")

It's also convoluted to say there's some credible threat in the fact that Trump nominates judges. (What are you saying -- that during the vetting process for future judges he'll ask each candidate, "What's your stance on sending future parking lot protesters to foreign prisons for 20-year sentences?")

It's mildly newsworthy that he's talking out loud about such an outrageous hypothetical. But it's clearly just posing as powerful and in control for his base. A president does not have this power - and I honestly don't think he even cares. He just wants to act like he does for a few moments on Truth Social.

The only really newsworthy thing here is the protests upset him enough that he had to specifically address it with some made-up hypothetical to make himself and his base feel like he's not losing popular support.