{"id":33706,"date":"2024-10-21T07:08:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T12:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=33706"},"modified":"2024-10-31T22:19:39","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T03:19:39","slug":"trump-doubles-down-on-jan-6-defense-and-enemy-from-within-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=33706","title":{"rendered":"Trump doubles down on Jan. 6 defense and &#8220;enemy from within&#8221; comments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Former&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/politics-policy\/donald-trump\"><u>President Trump<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;stood by his comments that political opponents are the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/13\/sunday-snapshot-tim-walz-rural-voters\"><u>enemy from within<\/u><\/a>&#8221; in a Fox News interview aired Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>The big picture:&nbsp;<\/strong>The GOP nominee has dug his heels in on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/16\/trump-extreme-violent-rhetoric-2024-election\"><u>controversial rhetoric<\/u><\/a>, even as it has garnered scrutiny, while his language becomes darker ahead of Nov. 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Since he suggested in a Fox interview aired last week that the National Guard or military could be used against the &#8220;enemy from within,&#8221; including &#8220;radical-left lunatics,&#8221; in the case of Election Day chaos, Trump has doubled down on his comments.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He has, on multiple occasions in recent days,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/16\/trump-fox-town-hall-democrats-2024\"><u>named<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as examples of the &#8220;enemy.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">In a separate head-turning moment at a Univision town hall Wednesday, Trump\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2024-election\/trump-says-nothing-was-done-wrong-jan-6-republican-voter-confronts-rcna175755\"><u>downplayed<\/u><\/a>\u00a0the events of January 6, where around\u00a0<a href=\"#:~:text=Approximately 140 police officers were,from the Metropolitan Police Department.\"><u>140<\/u><\/a>\u00a0police officers were assaulted, as &#8220;a day of love.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Zoom in:&nbsp;<\/strong>He reaffirmed his contention that the deadly Jan. 6 attack was a &#8220;day of love&#8221; in a &#8220;MediaBuzz&#8221; interview aired on Sunday with Howard Kurtz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Pressed on the comment he made at a Univision town hall, Trump bragged about the crowd size at the rally preceding the Capitol riot, saying there was &#8220;beauty&#8221; and a &#8220;love&#8221; in the &#8220;tremendous crowd.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He again claimed &#8220;strange things&#8221; happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6, falsely alleging police were &#8220;ushering&#8221; rioters into the building.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;I&#8217;m saying that when I saw that tremendous crowd \u2014 the largest group I&#8217;ve ever spoken to \u2014 in front of these beautiful monuments, I thought it was actually a beautiful thing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It was a peaceful [protest].&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The GOP nominee also argued there were &#8220;no guns&#8221; at the site of the riot (there\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/dc-md-va\/2022\/07\/08\/jan6-defendants-guns\/\"><u>were<\/u><\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>What he&#8217;s saying:<\/strong>&nbsp;Kurtz highlighted the former president&#8217;s &#8220;enemy from within&#8221; phrase, saying it is &#8220;a pretty ominous phrase if you&#8217;re talking about other Americans.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Trump replied, &#8220;I think it&#8217;s accurate,&#8221; saying a &#8220;smart president&#8221; can handle the &#8220;so-called enemies&#8221; like Russia and China but that there are also enemies within the U.S.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He again pointed to Schiff, who\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/house-intelligence-committee-transcripts-russia-investigation\/\"><u>probed<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Trump during his time as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, as a &#8220;crooked politician&#8221; and &#8220;an enemy.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;Of course, he&#8217;s an enemy &#8230; he wanted to put my son in jail,&#8221; he claimed, calling Schiff a &#8220;threat to democracy.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He added he thinks &#8220;Nancy Pelosi is an enemy from within,&#8221; reiterating\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/capitol-riot-fact-check-trump-biden-rioters-0b3406e02c86bd057e15c9d8c16ccd51\"><u>false<\/u><\/a>\u00a0claims that the former House Speaker rejected National Guard troops during the Jan. 6 attack.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Zoom out:&nbsp;<\/strong>Trump also responded to criticism from former Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/11\/mark-milley-trump-fascist-bob-woodward-book\"><u>Mark Milley<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;and Defense Secretary Gen.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2024\/10\/19\/politics\/military-leaders-sound-the-alarm-trump\/index.html\"><u>Jim Mattis<\/u><\/a>, calling them &#8220;woke&#8221; and saying he does not &#8220;respect them as soldiers.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t consider those people great generals,&#8221; Trump reiterated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/10\/20\/trump-fox-jan-6-enemy-from-within-doubles-down\">axios<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former&nbsp;President Trump&nbsp;stood by his comments that political opponents are the &#8220;enemy from within&#8221; in a Fox News interview aired Sunday. The big picture:&nbsp;The GOP nominee has dug his heels in on&nbsp;controversial rhetoric, even as it has garnered scrutiny, while his language becomes darker ahead of Nov. 5. Zoom in:&nbsp;He reaffirmed his contention that the deadly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[30891,1705,1613,1230],"class_list":["post-33706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-internal-enemies","tag-defense","tag-election","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33708,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33706\/revisions\/33708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}