Who Trump Suspects as 'Enemy'

 In the final weeks of the campaign, Donald Trump's supporters have made fruitless attempts to convince him to cease expressing his anger toward "enemies from within."

October 26, 2024,

National headlines from Abcnews24hr

TEMPE, Arizona TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) – In the final days of the campaign, Donald Trump's supporters have made fruitless attempts to convince him to cease expressing his anger toward "enemies from within." But he continues.

The former president is becoming more and more obsessed with the Americans he feels have misled or harmed him in his interviews and rallies. He claims that they are worse than the United States' foreign enemies. Additionally, he has made it clear that he intends to pursue them using the federal government's resources, including the military.

At a rally in Wisconsin last month, Trump declared, "The crazy lunatics that we have — the fascists, the Marxists, the communists, the people that we have that are actually running the country." "Those individuals—the enemy from within—are more dangerous than China, Russia, and other people."

He has doubled down when offered the chance to hedge.



In an interview with Trump last weekend, Fox News' Howard Kurtz said that the phrase "enemies from within" is "a pretty ominous phrase, if you're talking about other Americans."

Some of Trump's former senior aides have been so worried by his vow to resolve personal grievances from the Oval Office that they have called him a fascist. Trump's Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, concurred that Trump's ideology is authoritarian and ultranationalist.

Harris stated Thursday in Georgia, "It's either me, working for you, crossing things off my to-do list, or Donald Trump in there, stewing over his enemies list."



Trump's detractors caution that the checks and balances that held him accountable, such as government officials and aides who disregarded instructions that might have been unlawful or diverted him from bad ideas, won't exist in a second term.

Some Trump backers claim that his rhetoric about seeking revenge is either appropriate or exaggerated.

Before a Trump rally in the Phoenix area on Thursday, Jennifer Warnke, 57, of St. Johns, Arizona, stated, "We already know what kind of president he will be because he already served." She claimed that Trump's joking about being a tyrant just "for day one" was intended to highlight his dedication to border protection.



Trump typically uses vague terms to describe his adversaries, such as communists, the deep state, the radical left, or just "they." Sometimes, though, he calls them by name. Here are a few Americans that Trump has targeted in the last few weeks:

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Since his days in the White House, Trump has had a tense relationship with Schiff, a Democratic congressman from Los Angeles who is the clear favorite to win California's open Senate seat.

Throughout Trump's presidency, Schiff served as the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and was a vocal and harsh critic of Trump's interactions with foreign leaders, particularly Vladimir Putin of Russia. The first time the House impeached Trump, Schiff was the lead impeachment manager, lobbying senators to remove him from office.

"These folks are nasty. There are many wicked people here. However, Trump stated on Fox News this weekend that "Shifty Schiff" and a few of the others are, in my opinion, the enemies from within. He referred to Schiff as a “sleazebag” during a rally in California this month.

According to Schiff, the eruptions highlight the risk of a second Trump administration.



Schiff stated on MSNBC, "We're witnessing a lot of very erratic behavior, which would be acceptable if it were your crazy grandpa or crazy old grandpa, but this is a presidential candidate."

Schiff stated that if Trump regains power, "we're all going to have to do everything we can to defend our democracy and our institutions," since he has replaced capable advisors with "utter sycophants."

During his administration, the former speaker of the House obstructed Trump's congressional agenda and led the House to impeach him twice. As a vociferous opponent, she has called him a menace to democracy and, after sitting behind him during his State of the Union Address, she once dramatically tore apart the speech's text.


During the Fox interview, Trump stated, "I believe Nancy Pelosi is an enemy from within." She told lies. She was meant to keep the Capitol safe.

He restated the disproved allegation that Pelosi turned down the National Guard's offer of protection for the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a group of Trump supporters broke in to attempt to prevent the certification of his 2020 election defeat.

Since calling the mainstream media "fake news" during his first campaign, Trump has targeted journalists.


His anger has recently been focused specifically on CBS's "60 Minutes," the highest-rated news program on television.

Trump has criticized CBS for deleting Harris' response to a question regarding Israel after he refused to be interviewed for an election special earlier this month. A different segment of her response to the same question was broadcast on "Face the Nation," another CBS program.

A popular journalistic activity is editing. Trump also participates in edited interviews.



But because of what he dubbed the "biggest scandal in broadcast history," he has been disparaging the network at his rallies and on social media, threatening to cancel his broadcast licenses from CBS.

Trump repeated an attack on the media from his 2016 campaign, which stunned the political establishment at the time but wasn't a recurring theme in his more recent speech, at a rally in Arizona on Thursday.

They are the people's enemies. To a mocking audience, Trump declared, "They are." "They asked me not to say that. I'd rather not say it. And I hope that one day they won't be the people's enemy.

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