Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate

Donald Trumpsays six-weeks is not enough. Image via AP.

On Friday, he delivered a stunning statement to news cameras in which he brought up a string of past allegations of sexual misconduct, describing several in graphic detail, even as he denied his accusers’ allegations. Earlier, he had voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on the appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, turning focus to his legal woes in the campaign’s final stretch.

Earlier Saturday, Trump had leaned into familiar grievances about everything from his indictments to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election as he campaigned in one of the most deeply Republican swaths of battleground Wisconsin.

“The Harris-Biden DOJ is trying to throw me in jail — they want me in jail — for the crime of exposing their corruption,” Trump claimed at an outdoor rally at Central Wisconsin Airport, where he spoke behind a wall of bulletproof glass due to new security protocols following his July assassination attempt.

There is no evidence that President Joe Biden or Harris influenced decisions by the Justice Department or state prosecutors to indict the former president.

Trump has eschewed traditional debate preparation, choosing to hold rallies and events, while Harris has been cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, working with aides since Thursday.

Harris has agreed to a single debate, which ABC will host.

At the rally, Trump outlined his plans to “Drain the swamp” — a throwback to his winning 2016 campaign message as he ran as an outsider challenging the status quo. Though Trump spent four years in the Oval Office, he vowed anew to “cast out the corrupt political class” if he wins again and to “cut the fat out of our government for the first time, meaningfully, in 60 years.”

As part of that effort, he repeated his plan, announced Thursday, to create a new “Government Efficiency Commission” headed by Elon Musk that will be charged with conducting “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” to root out waste.

After again maligning the Congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s capitol by his supporters after his election loss in 2020, Trump told the crowd of thousands that he would “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime” and sign their pardons on his first day back in office.

Trump has repeatedly defended those who have been jailed for crimes, including violent attacks on law enforcement.

And he said he would “completely overhaul” what he labeled “Kamala’s corrupt Department of Injustice.”

“Instead of persecuting Republicans, they will focus on taking down bloodthirsty cartels, transnational gangs, and radical Islamic terrorists,” he said.

Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika responded to his comments with a statement warning that, if Trump is reelected, he will “use his unchecked power to prosecute his enemies and pardon insurrectionists who violently attacked our Capitol on January 6.”

Both Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Wisconsin this year. In this state, four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several polls of Wisconsin voters conducted after Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a close race.

Democrats consider Wisconsin one of the must-win “blue wall” states. In Wisconsin on Thursday, Biden had won the state in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. Trump carried it by a slightly larger margin in 2016, by nearly 23,000 votes.

As Trump was campaigning, Harris took a short break from debate prep to visit Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, where she bought several seasoning mixes. One customer saw the Democratic nominee and began openly weeping as Harris hugged her and said, “We’re going to be fine. We’re all in this together.”

Harris said she was honored to have endorsements from two major Republicans: former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman.

“People are exhausted about the division and the attempts to kind of divide us as Americans,” she said, adding that her main message at the debate would be that the country wants to be united.

“It’s time to turn the page on the divisiveness,” she said. “It’s time to bring our country together, to chart a new way forward.”

Trump held his rally in Mosinee, a city of about 4,500 people in central Wisconsin. Mosinee is within Wisconsin’s mostly rural 7th Congressional District, a reliably Republican area in a purple state.

During his speech, he railed against Harris in dark and ominous language, claiming that if the woman he calls “Comrade Kamala Harris gets four more years, you will be living (in) a full-blown Banana Republic” ruled by “anarchy” and “tyranny.”

Trump also railed against the administration’s border policies, calling the Democrats’ approach “suicidal” and accusing them of having “imported murderers, child predators, and serial rapists from all over the planet.”

Many studies have found immigrants, including those in the country illegally, commit fewer violent crimes than native-born citizens. Violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.

He dismissed warnings from U.S. officials about ongoing Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of November’s election, including an indictment this past week that alleged a media company linked to six conservative influencers was secretly funded by Russian state media employees.

“The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again,” Trump told the crowd. “And, you know, the whole world laughed at it this time.”

Among those in the crowd was Dale Osuldsen, who was celebrating his 68th birthday Saturday at his first-ever Trump rally. He hopes a second Trump administration will take on “cancel culture” and bring the country back to its “foundational past.

“We’ve had past administrations say they want to fundamentally change America,” Osulden said. “Fundamentally changing America is a bad thing.”

Many supporters embarked on hourslong drives from across Wisconsin to see Trump speak. Some came from even further.

Sean Moon, a Tennessee musician who releases MAGA-themed rap music under the stage name “King Bullethead,” blasted his songs from a truck in the event parking lot. As a musician, he said Trump rallies approximate the experience of a raucous concert.

“Trump is a rock star,” Moon said. “He’s incredible. People see he represents them, and the deep state is trying to kill him and take him out. But he’s standing strong, and he stands for the normal person.”

Democrats have relied on massive turnout in the state’s two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, to counter Republican strength in rural areas like Mosinee and the Milwaukee suburbs. Trump must win the votes in places like Mosinee to have any chance of cutting into the Democrats’ advantage in urban areas.

Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July. Trump has made four previous stops to the state, most recently just last week in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last month filled the same Milwaukee arena where Republicans held their national convention for a rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention just 90 miles away in Chicago. Walz returned Monday to Milwaukee, where he spoke at a Labor Day rally organized by unions.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.