WASHINGTON: Donald Trump issued a sinister election-related threat to “radical” leftists on Sunday, saying he could support US military force against Americans he described as “the enemy within” if they disrupt the vote next month.

“I think the bigger problem is the enemy within, not even the people that have come in and destroyed our country,” the Republican presidential candidate told Fox News show, Sunday Morning Futures, referring to American citizens as opposed to migrants he criticises for flooding the country.

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“We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military,” Trump said. “Because they can’t let that happen.”

The former president was responding to a question about what he expects will transpire on election day, after President Joe Biden said last week that while he believed the vote would be free and fair, he did not know “whether it will be peaceful”.

Donald Trump claimed in his remarks that fellow Americans are “more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries”. The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris swiftly pushed back on the Republican’s extraordinary remarks.

“I know people have grown numb to Trump over the past decade, but this should be shocking” to Americans, said Ian Sams, a Harris campaign spokesman.

“Donald Trump is suggesting that his fellow Americans are worse enemies than foreign adversaries, and he is saying he would use the military against them,” Sams said.

“Taken with the supreme court’s decision to give presidents immunity (for their official actions as commander in chief), and Trump’s vow to be a ‘dictator on day one’ willing to allow the ‘termination’ of the constitution. Scary stuff,” he added on X.

Battleground states

Kamala Harris and rival Donald Trump campaigned in critical battleground states on Sunday, seeking 11th-hour advantages in a deadlocked White House race, as new polling shows the vice president underperforming among some traditional Democratic voter demographics.

Harris was in North Carolina, a state hard-hit by a hurricane two weeks ago that devastated several communities and left more than 235 people dead across the US Southeast, as she seeks to counter Trump’s claims that federal agencies have done little to help storm victims.

Her boss, President Joe Biden, was in Florida assessing the damage from more recent Hurricane Milton which raked across the southern state and highlighting the federal government’s commitment to rescue and recovery efforts.

With just 23 days before the Nov 5 election, Republican former president Trump and his running mate Senator J D Vance continue to thrust the federal disaster response squarely into the presidential race.

Asked on ABC Sunday talk show “This Week” whether Trump has been accurate in describing the federal response as incompetent, Vance said “it’s to suggest that Americans are feeling left behind by their government, which they are.” Biden took an aerial tour of the devastation in Tampa Bay and nearby St Petersburg, and received a briefing of storm response efforts.

While he described the impact as “cataclysmic” in some neighborhoods, Biden said Florida was fortunate it was not worse. “It’s in moments like this, we come together to take care of each other, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans,” the president said.

Trump was set to appear at his own rally in Arizona, where he will reinforce his border policies and amplify his aggressive — often false — rhetoric about migrants.

A day earlier he held a roundtable with Latino leaders in neighboring Nevada, another swing state with a substantial Hispanic population.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2024