Even Donald Trump’s MAGA allies are in disbelief over the Republican presidential nominee’s recent comments.
Several leading Republicans have outright refused to acknowledge that direct quotes from Trump’s weekend interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo were actually what he said. Trump claimed on video that the real election threat in November was his critics, such as California Representative Adam Schiff, whom he referred to as “the enemy from within,” and that the military should be called in to forcibly intervene with the election.
Speaking with CNN Tuesday morning, Florida Representative Mike Waltz dismissed the idea that Trump had used such language, claiming that it was instead the network’s attempt at “connecting some dots.”
“I don’t think that’s what he said, John,” Waltz told host John Berman, before pointing to civil unrest and mass protests during 2020. “I think that’s completely appropriate, the National Guard was rolled out then.… We cannot have, nor should we have, riots in the streets, business owners threatened, and Americans feeling unsafe.”
“Do you think deploying the military against political opponents is something that’s responsible to discuss from political candidates?” Berman asked, after a curt back-and-forth.
“I think it’s responsible to discuss deploying the National Guard, which is clearly part of the military, John, to keep our streets safe, to keep rioters out of the streets,” Waltz said.
But Trump hadn’t just threatened to send out the National Guard—instead, he specified the use of the larger military apparatus.
“We have some very bad people,” Trump said on Sunday. “We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the—and it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin also struggled Monday evening to rationalize the MAGA leader’s violent rhetoric, stunning CNN host Jake Tapper, who had to remind the governor that Trump had “literally” said those words.
“Again, Jake, I don’t think that, and again, I can’t speak for him, but I do—I do think that you are misinterpreting and misrepresenting his thoughts,” said Youngkin. “I do believe, again, it’s all around the fact that we have had an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants come over the border in an unconstrained, unrestrained fashion. The Biden-Harris administration has allowed it to happen … I don’t think that he’s referring to elected people in America.”
“But I’m literally reading his quotes,” proclaimed Tapper. “I’m literally reading his quotes to you. And I played them earlier, so you could hear that they were not made up by me.”
“I don’t—I don’t believe that’s what he’s saying,” Youngkin insisted.
Even Trump’s own campaign team is rushing to sanewash the comments. The campaign posted a video Monday of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz directly quoting Trump’s threat.
“Tim Walz peddles a disgusting lie that President Trump will use the U.S. Army against his political opponents,” the campaign wrote on X. “This is reckless, dangerous rhetoric. Tim should be ASHAMED of himself.”
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