Fox News host Sean Hannity didn't mention the word "dictator" last week when he asked former President Donald Trump during a Fox News Town Hall if he would "abuse power as retribution against anybody" in a potential second term. In his response, Trump attempted to paraphrase Hannity's question and answer it himself.

"This guy, he says, 'You're not going to be a dictator, are you?'" Trump said, referring to Hannity. "I said, 'No, no, no - other than Day 1.' We're closing the border. And we're drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I'm not a dictator."

Some fellow Republicans insisted that Trump was joking about his plans to be dictator for a day, with Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., describing the remarks as "part of his appeal ... that authenticity."

But for autocracy scholars and constitutional law experts, Trump's statements raised alarms that he had thought carefully about how to consolidate the levers of power should he return to office in ways that eluded him in his first four years in the White House.

The comments - which he reiterated at a dinner in New York City on Saturday night - are part of a pattern for Trump, who has made several statements suggesting that he could use extraconstitutional powers to enact his agenda. Late last year, Trump, who is the leading contender for the Republican nomination, called on his social network Truth Social for terminating "all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," in a post on his social network Truth Social.

But scholars say that even without violating the letter of the law, Trump would have access to broad powers granted to him as chief of the executive branch. He does not need to become a dictator to subvert democracy, they say: He can simply use the tools of democracy to do so.

"With Trump, the line between provocation and prevarication is always blurry," said David Pozan, professor of law at Columbia Law School. "I think we should take that 'dictator' comment seriously as a window into his mind-set, and an admission of his authoritarian designs, even if the precise policy implications are unclear - even to him."

Trump and his aides have already started planning for retribution should he win in 2024, privately telling advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office. In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to "go after" President Biden and his family. Outside groups, such as the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, have started to put in place a plan for how to execute an aggressive agenda in a potential second Trump administration.

"It's pretty clear that if elected, Trump would use all his constitutional powers aggressively to pursue his agenda," said Daniel Treisman, professor of political science at the University of California at Los Angeles, and author of the book, "The New Autocracy."

"On many matters, including the border and drilling for oil, he could do a lot by executive order," Treisman said. "And we know his practice is to move fast and break things before the courts can catch up."

There are no precedents for leaders becoming a dictator for a day, according to Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of the book "Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present." Once leaders get a taste for absolute power, they generally don't yield it.

"I know of zero dictators who became more democratic," said Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. "That's not how autocrats behave."

It's also rare for autocrats to give up power through a democratic process, she said. She cited Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who tortured and killed Chileans for nearly 17 years before being voted out of office, as one exception.

Dictators typically develop over time, she added. Russian president Vladimir Putin was first elected in 2000 and has since made moves to expand his power, punish his enemies and prolong his rule.

Trump has often expressed admiration for Putin and other autocratic or authoritarian leaders. The U.S. constitutional system has institutional protections and checks on power that other countries lack, making it difficult for a U.S. leader to follow playbooks from other nations for consolidating authority.

But scholars say the American system also has vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a leader bent on overturning democratic norms, pushing the bounds of what's legal and nurturing despotic impulses.

Below is a small sampling of the kinds of actions that scholars say Trump could attempt to take even without proclaiming himself dictator for a day.

-Weaponize the Internal Revenue Service to go after political enemies. There is precedent for such a stance. President Richard M. Nixon, angry at having been audited during his predecessor John F. Kennedy's administration, instructed his aides in May 1971 that he wanted his IRS commissioner to "go after our enemies and not go after our friends," according to a transcript published years later in The Washington Post. The IRS commissioner declined to execute Nixon's plan. Trump, by contrast, has said he would appoint loyalists eager to carry out his wishes in a second administration. "He is preparing to hire in his second administration people who have vowed to do their very best to ensure that he has maximal power," said Wilfred Codrington, professor at Brooklyn Law School

-Fire large numbers of federal employees on day one. Trump already took the first step just before he left office, proposing to change the employment status of thousands of civil service employees so he could weed out those considered disloyal. Civil service employees are generally hired rather than appointed or elected, and their tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. Trump has attacked the civil service as the "deep state" that stood in the way of him taking certain actions in his first term. "If you reclassify those civil servants, all of a sudden, the so-called deep state becomes your plaything," said Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University. The reclassification is so important that the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" targets which positions, by agency, should be reclassified, Scheppele added.

-Invoke the Insurrection Act. Trump could use the Insurrection Act to marshal the military to put down by force any protests that might emerge against his government. The Post recently reported that his aides drafted plans to potentially invoke the act on his first day in office. But as he showed in June 2020, he doesn't necessarily need to go that far. Trump called upon Republican governors and their National Guard commanders to airlift troops to the nation's capital to help control crowds outside the White House following the police murder of George Floyd, thereby bypassing any need for the Insurrection Act to amass a large military force to fight against American civilians. "People should be very concerned that he will try to exceed his constitutional powers, but with a friendly Republican Party, Trump has effectively co-opted elements of the government that do not require exceeding the constitution," said Treisman of UCLA.

-Punish media foes. Trump could co-opt the media and create a "spin dictatorship," according to Péter Krekó, senior lecturer at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Modern autocrats, Krekó said, "typically start with taking over the media and focus on the manipulation of information." Trump has long railed against the media and attacked factual stories he perceives as overly critical of him. During his first term he installed a loyalist atop the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) who fired staff en masse, declaring them spies. Trump allies have said a second administration would target Trump's perceived enemies in the media through the Justice Department. In September, Trump appeared to threaten to revoke the FCC licenses of networks he dislikes.

-Go to war: Trump has often decried U.S. involvement in unpopular foreign conflicts. But military action abroad to distract from a crackdown on rights at home has long been a favorite tool of autocrats, and the U.S. president has broad authority in matters of war and peace. "The minute Trump becomes commander in chief he could launch a war, assassinate leaders abroad and more," said Scheppele, who is writing a book titled "Destroying Democracy by Law," due out next year. In 2017, Trump was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Florida club Mar-a-Lago and interrupted dessert to inform the foreign leader that the U.S. had attacked a Syrian airfield. Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross described the cruise missile attack on Syria as "after-dinner entertainment" for guests dining at the club.