Washington, Oct 14 (EFE).- United States Vice President Kamala Harris slammed her rival, former president Donald Trump, on Monday following his suggestion that he would use the military to confront any chaos from a supposed “enemy from within” on election day.
During her event in Erie County, in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, Harris played a short video of clips of Trump speaking, including some of his Fox News interview on Sunday, during which he said he wasn’t worried about his supporters or foreign actors on Election Day on Nov. 5, but “radical left lunatics.
“I think the bigger problem is the people from within. We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics and… it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if necessary, by the military,”
Trump replied. Harris warned that his rhetoric was dangerous. “Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged and he is out for unchecked power, that’s what he’s looking for,” Harris said. “He wants to send the military after American citizens.”
She argued that Trump considers Americans who do not agree with his vision as enemies and warned that he would especially attack journalists whose stories do not favor him, electoral officials who refuse to manipulate the results in his favor, as well as judges who do not comply with his wishes.
“We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries.”
Trump has also repeatedly used the phrase “enemy of the people” to refer to media outlets that do not portray him in a favorable light.
The crowd at Harris’ rally was particularly lively, frequently interrupting the vice president with applause and chants of “USA, USA!” – phrases that until recently were heard only at Trump rallies, but now resonate at Democratic events as Harris seeks to reclaim patriotism for her party.
At one point, as Harris was criticizing Trump, attendees began chanting “Lock him up!” – a version of the “Lock her up!” that Trump constantly used against his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton.Harris immediately responded, asking the crowd to stop the chants and saying,
“The courts will take care of that. Let’s focus on November, okay?” – to which attendees responded with applause.
Trump has made history by becoming the first former US president to be convicted of a crime, and is currently facing several court cases, including those related to his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his role in the assault on the Capitol in 2021.
Pennsylvania: battleground state
Trump was also in swing state Pennsylvania on Monday, participating in a townhall meeting with voters in Oaks, near Philadelphia.When a man asked him about his plans to make housing more affordable, Trump claimed that regulations make construction more expensive and reiterated his promise to increase oil production in the country, despite it already being at record levels.
“We’re going to drill baby drill, we’re going to have so much energy and we’re going to bring prices down,” he said, a message that resonates particularly in Pennsylvania, the US’ second largest producer of natural gas after Texas.Pennsylvania has emerged as one of the most hotly contested key states in this election.
Trump managed to snatch this state from the Democrats in 2016, becoming the first Republican to win it since 1988.
However, in 2020, Biden, who was born in Pennsylvania, defeated Trump by about 80,000 votes.
Polls show a very close race in that state with Harris just 0.7 points ahead of Trump, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average. EFE
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