Over the weekend, Trump repeatedly suggested using the military against “the enemy within.”
KASIE HUNT: Kamala Harris is warning voters about a new phrase Donald Trump has been using to describe some of his fellow Americans.
DONALD TRUMP: It’s the enemy from within. All the scum that we have to deal with that hate our country. That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia.
KASIE HUNT: The enemy within. Trump used the phrase again in an interview with Fox News yesterday when he was asked whether he expects chaos on Election Day from outside agitators.
DONALD TRUMP: I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country and by the way, totally destroying our country. The towns of villages, they’re being inundated. But I don’t think they the problem in terms of election. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military.
KASIE HUNT: All right. Our panel is back. Matt Gorman, he’s saying that these people should be handled by the National Guard or the military. Um– What?
I mean, I think we’ve learned a lot about whether or not we should believe Trump when he says things, which is to say he he is to be. He is to be believed, um– (STAMMERS – PAUSES) it–.
We’re at the point where he’s saying I’m going to use the National Guard and the military to take my political enemies out of the country?
MATT GORMAN: I didn’t like that because I watched a clip. And they also referenced Biden’s comments about Biden worrying it not being a peaceful transfer of power. And earlier in the clip, Trump referenced that too.
The way I took it was that obviously, as we know, there were riots in the wake of 2020. There’s also riots on Inauguration Day, small others. It’s much, much smaller scale in D.C. and 2018 and 2017. I took it as National Guard and military putting those down and controlling those, which I am totally fine with.
I wish I would have been happened on January 6th. That’s how I took it, because the clip was a little broader in terms of post Election Day and referencing Biden’s comments on that.
KASIE HUNT: Is that how you took it?
MEGHAN HAYS: No. And I think that’s funny to watch the Trump surrogates twist themselves into pretzels. I’m not talking about you specifically, but we’re going to watch them all twist themselves and say a version of what you’re saying.
I think people know what his character is and this is to be expected. I don’t think he’s saying anything that he doesn’t believe to be true and that he wouldn’t actually do it if he could do it.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: I think here the case, the facts are that Donald Trump and his one of his closest advisers, Stephen Miller, have made clear over the course of months, if not this entire year, they have said that whenever Donald Trump sees fit, he will invoke the Insurrection Act and use National Guard and use military to go into American cities, not just to potentially round up migrants, but to crack down on American citizens.
And there is no–. The Insurrection Act. I’ve talked to legal experts and military experts about this. The president can use it at his own discretion, his or her own discretion. They can decide when a situation they think warrants it.
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