Harris uses Trump’s ‘enemy from within’ comment to portray GOP rival as dangerous and unstable / CNN Politics

By Priscilla Alvarez and Eric Bradner, CNN 5 minute read Updated 8:45 PM EDT, Mon October 14, 2024

  • Harris Criticizes Trump: Vice President Kamala Harris plans to criticize Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, highlighting his comments about the US military handling “the enemy from within” on Election Day.
  • Campaign Ad: Harris’ campaign will release a new ad titled “Enemy Within,” featuring former Trump aides warning about the dangers of a second Trump term.
  • Trump Rally Tactics: Harris encourages voters to watch Trump rallies, suggesting they reveal his instability and the exhaustion of his supporters.
  • Republican Support: Harris’ campaign features endorsements from Republicans and former Trump officials, emphasizing bipartisan support for her candidacy.

@RalphHightower: Trump, instead of crazies taking pot shots at you, with your words, “the enemy within”, your crazies will be shooting at normal citizens.

Trump Crazies, participans in the January 6 Insurrection:

  • Pride Boys
  • Zero Percenters
  • Oath Losers

Vice President Kamala Harris slammed Republican rival Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Monday night over the former president’s comment that the US military should handle “the enemy from within” on Election Day.

It was the latest example of Harris’ campaign drawing sharper distinctions with Trump in the presidential race’s closing weeks, using the former president’s own words and those of his former aides to cast him as dangerous and unstable.

@RalphHightower: McCarthyism is dead. You, Trump, are the enemy within. From your telephone calls to Putin as a prive citizen, you are the threat to America, and a security risk.

Harris on Monday warned that Trump’s actions could put people’s freedom at risk.

  • “You heard his words, coming from him. He’s talking about the enemy within … he’s talking about that he considers anyone that doesn’t support him, or who will not bend to his will, an enemy of our country,
  • ”He’s saying he would use the military to go after them … and we know who he would target, because he has attacked them before: Journalists whose stories who he doesn’t like, election officials who refuse to cheat by finding extra votes for him, judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will. This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America, and dangerous.”

“The second term would be worse,” Carroll says in the ad. “There will be no one to stop his worst instincts. Unchecked power. No guardrails. We elect Trump again, we’re in terrible danger.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ vice presidential pick, told hundreds of supporters at a convention center in Green Bay, Wisconsin that Trump’s suggestion at using the National Guard or the US military to respond to political opposition to him “makes me sick to my stomach” and referred to Trump as “a fascist to his core.”

  • “As someone who wore this nation’s uniform proudly, as someone who now is the commander In chief of the Minnesota National Guard, the idea of sending US military personnel against American citizens makes me sick to my stomach,”
  • Walz said. “We’ll let the lawyers decide if what he said was treason. But what I know is, it’s a call for violence, plain and simple, and it’s pretty damn un-American, if you ask me.”

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, attempted to defend Trump’s remarks.

  • “Is it a justifiable use of those assets if they’re rioting and looting and burning cities down to the ground? Of course it is. Right? I think the question is, is it a justifiable use of assets, depends on what’s actually happening,” Vance told reporters in Minneapolis.
  • Vance also claimed there were “a core group of far-left activists” who were willing to harass and commit violence against fellow Americans in 2016 and after the death of George Floyd in 2020.

She has previously urged voters to watch Trump rallies – an unusual move for a candidate, and one that underscores the Harris campaign’s belief that an unfiltered Trump is damaging to his own prospects.

  • “You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about windmills cause cancer. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom,” Harris said in her debate with Trump last month.