While Vice President Kamala Harris was in North Carolina assisting victims of Hurricane Helene by packing care packages, former President Donald Trump was campaigning in solidly liberal Coachella, California.
According to The Independent, at one point in the Oct. 12 rally, Trump was heckled by a woman in the crowd. He responded to the interruption of the rally by returning to a theme that was prevalent during his 2016 rallies, threatening violence to dissenters.
“This election is your chance to send a message,” Trump said, before turning around to face the crowd which was booing a heckler. “Back home to mommy. She goes back home to mommy. ‘Was that you, darling?’ And then she gets the hell knocked out of her,” Trump remarked.
Despite the identity of the heckler being unclear at the time, Trump also claimed the woman’s mother was a supporter of his, “Her mother’s a big fan of ours, you know that, right?”
Trump also continued his extremist rhetoric at the rally, at several points referring to Election Day as “liberation day,” calling the United States an “occupied country,” and claiming that migrants are “taking over” states. Trump also said, “It’s no different really than if we lost a war.”
On social media, some of the responses to Trump’s rhetoric around the heckler questioned the sincerity of his earlier pledge to be a protector of women.
According to Politico reporter Daniel Lippman, Trump’s rhetoric has only gotten darker as the campaign has gone on.
“I think he feels like the walls have closed in on him, that he faces potential jail time in criminal cases,” Lippman told CNN. “If he loses this election, then there is a good chance that he will go to prison so this is almost an existential battle for him to not be put in an orange jumpsuit.”
According to CNN, Vice President Harris was critical of Trump’s comments about an “enemy from within” at her own rally on Oct 14.
“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,” Harris said.
Harris continued, “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 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.”
Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, told supporters during a campaign stop in Green Bay, Wisconsin that Trump’s suggestion that he will use the National Guard or the United States military to respond to dissenters disgusted him.
“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.”
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