Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), the Democratic vice presidential nominee, said former President Trump “crossed a line” by saying he would use the National Guard or military to combat “the enemy within” when asked in an interview about potential Election Day chaos.
“He crossed a line that, I have to tell you, in my lifetime, I would have never imagined because we know our history,” Walz said at a rally in Wisconsin on Monday. “To Donald Trump, anybody who doesn’t agree with him is the enemy.”
In an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Trump said he thought the “bigger problem” when it came to Election Day issues were “the people from within.”
“We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical-left lunatics. And I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen,” he said.
Vice President Harris’s campaign has ripped the remarks, saying they should “alarm every American who cares about their freedom and security.”
“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,” Harris campaign senior adviser and senior spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement.
Trump’s campaign stood by the president’s remarks.
“President Trump is 100% correct — those who seek to undermine democracy by sowing chaos in our elections are a direct threat, just like the terrorist from Afghanistan that was arrested for plotting multiple attacks on Election Day within the United States,” campaign spokesperson Stephen Cheung said in a statement.