Lawyers for the man charged with killing eight people on a Manhattan bike path last year say that President Donald Trump’s swift calls on social media for their client’s execution have injected “bloodthirst” and “revenge” into the government’s bid to seek the death penalty for their client.

Sayfullo Saipov, 30, faces 22 counts for allegedly mowing down pedestrians and cyclists with a rented Home Depot truck in an Oct. 31, 2017, attack on a popular bike path that runs along the West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan; the charges include eight counts of murder in aid of racketeering.