What did Donald Trump do today?

He said he'd push for more executions, which is not something he has a great track record with.

This week, President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 inmates on federal death row. They will now serve life in prison rather than face execution. The move is the mirror image of what Trump did during his last few weeks in office, when he forced a sudden acceleration in the number of federal prisoners executed.

Today, clearly frustrated that Biden had deprived him of one of the few aspects of the presidency he had paid close attention to during his first term, Trump said he would force the Justice Department to pursue the death penalty more often. 

Even assuming federal prosecutors take such an instruction seriously, this will probably have no real effect on most cases. Most capital offenses—which is to say, most murders—are prosecuted at the state level. Seeking the death penalty for eligible federal crimes means enormously increasing the amount of DOJ resources for a given case, which in turn limits the government's ability to prosecute other equally serious crimes.

Trump has a history with the death penalty that predates his sudden interest in presiding over executions at the end of his first term. Most of it has taken the form of simply lashing out at people who have upset him by suggesting that he could have them put to death, as for example when he publicly fantasized about executing the whistleblowers who revealed the evidence that led to his first impeachment.

But In 1989, Trump—then known mostly as a celebrity socialite—used the furor over the rape of a woman in Central Park to call for the restoration of the death penalty. At the time, five men were being held for trial based on confessions coerced by police. Though convicted and sentenced to , they were later exonerated. Trump has steadfastly refused to acknowledge their innocence or apologize for calling for their deaths.

Trump's 1989 paid advertisement, which ran in several New York papers

Trump has argued that the death penalty should not be restricted solely to murder cases, and that it should be applied to drug prosecutions and rapes. (Trump himself is a convicted criminal who has been found civilly liable for rape and accused of it by several women, including his first wife.) While the constitutionality of capital sentences for other crimes is unclear, Trump is correct that by statute, it can be sought in a variety of crimes, including those dealing with espionage and child sex trafficking.

Why does this matter?

• Prosecutors are supposed to serve justice, not a president's need to look tough.