Trump answers the charge of whether he’d use the military to move against his opponents
In her Fox News interview with Bret Baier, Harris said this about Trump:
You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him,” Harris told the Fox News host.
“This is a democracy, and in a democracy the president of the United States in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he’d lock people up for doing it,” she said.
If you would like to read what Trump actually said rather than Harris’ spin on it, see this. I think it’s quite clear – although he could and should have made it more clear – that he’s talking about violent, disruptive, far left demonstrators, and mostly about calling on the National Guard if necessary to maintain order. There’s nothing really new or different about that, although many people on the NY Times staff got all upset when Tom Cotton mentioned something similar a while back.
For example, here’s one of Trump’s previous statements on the matter:
On Oct. 13, during an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, Trump was asked if he is expecting chaos on Election Day. The former president said he was not anticipating mayhem from “the side that votes for Trump” but from what he called “the enemy from within.”
“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and [are destroying] our country — I don’t think they’re the problem in terms of Election Day — I think the bigger problem are the people from within,” Trump said.
“We have some very bad people; we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be very easily handled, if necessary, by the National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen,” Trump added.
Here’s more recent clarification from Trump, from a WSJ interview:
Columnist Peggy Noonan, a longtime and sometimes severe critic of Mr. Trump, asks him to clarify [comments he made in an interview with Maria Bartiromo televised this past Sunday]: “If you were to reach the presidency again, would you of course rule out using the military to move against your enemies? That is, yours would not be a fascist-style government that would use its agencies, entities or military to move against your political foes because they have opposed you—is that correct?”
“Yeah,” Mr. Trump says, “but I never said I would. . . . First of all, Biden, who doesn’t know he is alive—Biden said that he expects there to be a lot of trouble if I win the election. That’s a very bad statement for him to make. He said that. That’s where this came from.” Mr. Trump digresses into his poll numbers and has to be brought back on topic.
Ms. Noonan: “But you would never do that?”
Mr. Trump: “Of course I wouldn’t. But now, if you’re talking about you’re going to have riots on the street, you would certainly bring the National Guard in. As an example, in Minneapolis while I was there”—meaning while he was in office—“they had riots, literal riots. That whole city was burning down. And Minnesota, the governor was supposed to—our favorite governor—the governor was supposed to do it. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. And I said, ‘You got to get the National Guard.’ . . .
“And when you looked over the shoulder of that poor guy from CNN, that poor, stupid reporter who was standing there saying, ‘This seems to be a peaceful demonstration,’ then he gets hit on the leg with a rock, and behind him the whole city was burning. It looked like World War II in Berlin, and he’s trying to say that it’s peaceful. So I insisted that the National Guard—if I didn’t do that, I don’t think you would’ve had a city left. So I’m only talking about in cases like that where you need help. You can’t say, ‘I’ll never bring in everything,’ as the entire country is disappearing in bedlam. But certainly not against my opponents—it’s against civil unrest.”
But Harris would much rather imply that Trump will have some sort of policy of using the military to shoot his enemies and “the American people,” as well as locking up people who merely “disagree with him.” No, that last bit is solely the province of the party to which Harris belongs.
All part and parcel of ginning up even more TDS.
Trump answers the charge of whether he’d use the military to move against his opponents.
1. The Demos do not want the National Guard, let alone the Army, to put down rioters.
2. Demos prefer letting rioters riot. Which is what Governor Walz did in Minneapolis during the Sainted George Floyd riots in 2020.
That is, Demos prefer rioting and burning down cities to maintaining order.
physicsguy (5:14 pm) and Gringo (5:48 pm), both points are plain as day.
Yes, but aren’t they building a case that in case of a Trump victory, extraordinary measures would be justified to protect the American citizenry? I put this together with all of the “bi-partisan” proclamations of Trump’s danger by 751 or whatever senior poobahs as a strategy to legitimize any putsch as a defensive measure to “protect” rather than overthrow the republic.
Paranoid, but you can’t underestimate these people.
Yes, but aren’t they building a case that in case of a Trump victory, extraordinary measures would be justified to protect the American citizenry? …as a strategy to legitimize any putsch as a defensive measure to “protect” rather than overthrow the republic.
NancyB:
Quite. I worry about this too. I did catch a Fox clip of a Democrat making what sounded like a veiled threat to this effect in the event of a Trump victory.
Shoulda bookmarked the link.
As usual, a good way to understand what Democrats are up to is by noticing what they accuse Trump of — using the power of the military to outlaw political dissent, to imprison opponents and to turn the presidency into a dictatorship.
Nancy
Astute prediction: Any attempt to quell rioting will be labeled as you suggest. Using the military against the American people. Prepping the battle space.
neo:
I appreciate your hard work dismantling Democrat Facts That Aren’t True.
Sad, how easy it is to tell a lie, and how much harder it is refute it and understand the refutation.
@ huxley – totally agree with you on both points.
Neo really puts the work in to unravel the sound-bites, gotcha questions, reaction reversals (such as Republicans Pounce to change the focus from the actual events), and outright lies of our politicians and pundits.
The difficulty of refuting DemoLeft lies is that they don’t ever concede the point and move on (heh), they just trot out the old canard again and again and again.