When Donald Trump recently began leaning into the idea that millions of Americans — citizens of his own country — should be seen as “the enemy within,” some of the former president’s more sycophantic surrogates tried to suggest that the Republican wasn’t really saying what he said. said. Soon after, Trump doubled down and made his perspective clear:
Not only does Trump view many Americans as his “enemy,” he even suggests that the US military could be used against them on its own soil. Over the weekend, the Republican candidate continued to characterize his political opponents as the “enemy within,” arguing that he views many Democrats as more dangerous than the United States’ foreign adversaries.
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz asked Gov. Chris Sununu about the comments, and at least initially, the New Hampshire Republican conceded that the former president’s rhetoric “should give everyone pause.”
And if the governor had just stayed there, his response wouldn’t have been particularly remarkable. But in the same “This Week” interview, Sununu went on to say:
“Nobody likes that kind of stuff and that kind of exaggeration. But let’s see: He was president for four years. Did he go after his political enemies? Did he arm the Justice Department and go after Hillary Clinton? …Of course he didn’t, right?’
I’ve heard a few defenses of Trump’s “enemy within” rhetoric, but the governor’s defense is by far the worst because it proved the opposite of what he meant.
To hear Sununu tell it, the former president’s rhetoric about his domestic “enemies” could be dismissed as “exaggeration” because he wasn’t trying to weaponize the Justice Department to go after Hillary Clinton.
The problem, whether the governor of New Hampshire realizes it or not, is that Trump has really tried to weaponize the Justice Department to go after Hillary Clinton.
Of course, we know this because Trump has made no effort to keep this a secret. As regular readers know, Trump has publicly and privately begged prosecutors to indict Clinton during his tenure in the White House.
Ahead of Election Day 2020 – nearly four years after Clinton’s defeat – then-Republican President again publicly called for the Democrat’s incarceration and lobbied then-Attorney General Barr to prosecute the former Secretary of State for unknown reasons.
Sununu effectively told the national broadcast audience: “We can trust that the arsonist will not follow through on his threats to start many fires. After all, the last time we handed him matches and lighter fluid, he didn’t set anything on fire, right?’
Except it’s not right. The arsonist set burn a lot. All of us saw it happen. I kept the receipts.
Sununu asked, “Did he go after his political enemies?” What I don’t understand is why the governor is oblivious to the answer to his own question – because Trump absolutely went after his political enemies again and again, and he promises to go even further in a second term.
The New Hampshire Republican tried to make Trump look better, but he ultimately made Trump look worse.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
