Ex-Trump Official Issues Dire Warning on “Enemy From Within” Comment

Mark Esper, who served as secretary of defense during Donald Trump’s presidency, is warning that the former president’s threat to use the military on the “enemy from within” shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Trump’s military threat came on Sunday morning when he told Fox News, “I don’t think [migrants are] the problem in terms of Election Day. I think the bigger problem are 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 the National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Esper about Trump’s comments Monday night, and whether he took them seriously.

“He’s spoken about this before, if you recall a year ago or so, he spoke about a second Trump term being about retribution, so yes, I think we should take those words seriously,” Esper said.

Collins then cited Esper’s book where he wrote that Trump, during the 2020 protests following George Floyd’s murder, asked about shooting protesters. She asked the former secretary if he feared that Trump would try to use the National Guard or military against American citizens in that way.

“Yes, I do, of course, because I lived through that and I saw over the summer of 2020, where President Trump and those around him wanted to use the National Guard in various capacities, in cities such as Chicago and Portland and Seattle,” Esper said.

Collins asked if Esper was worried about who would be in his role in a future Trump administration if Trump suggests shooting protesters or makes a similar order.

“My concern is that the first year of the second Trump term would look more like the last year of the first Trump term. I think President Trump has learned the key is getting people around you who will do your bidding, who will not push back, who will implement what you want to do,” Esper said.

The fact that a former Trump official is warning to take Trump’s threats of using the military against his opponents seriously is a cause for alarm. Trump has already pledged to, if elected, begin mass deportations against both undocumented and legal immigrants, prosecuting his opponents for treason, and taking revenge against those he feels have wronged him.

Esper isn’t the only former Trump official who is worried, either: Retired U.S. Army general and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley has spoken about his fears of a Trump presidency, warning that Trump is “fascist to the core.” With the election only weeks away, the question is whether the media and the public will listen to people who worked closely with Trump, or if their fears will be realized.

One of Donald Trump’s campaign managers is cashing in big on the Republican nominee’s quest to retake the White House. Chris LaCivita has earned a staggering sum of more than $22 million in just the past two years as Trump’s adviser.

According to an investigation by The Daily Beast, the co-manager on Trump’s campaign pocketed $19 million in 2022 as a “strategic consultant” for two Trump-aligned super PACs. Since then, he’s continued to earn more through Trump’s 2024 campaign with the help of generous cuts on his campaign ads, and he will receive another  $150,000 bonus if Trump wins the election. On top of that, LaCivita has also received upfront payments for his services that have amounted up to $75,000 a month for “voter contact consulting,” according to multiple sources who spoke with the Beast.

Trump’s other co-campaign manager, Susie Wiles, is a volunteer. And on the other side of the ticket, Harris’s campaign manager is paid $13,442 a month, according to campaign finance records, a far more paltry sum in comparison.

Some of this look into Trump’s campaign finances was brought to light by an “audit” of the books led by  Trump campaign senior adviser Corey Lewandowski, who recently returned to Trump’s side. Lewandowski found that LaCivita’s consulting firm—which has no website and is headquartered in LaCivita’s home—had earned $3 million from the race and could collect another $5 million more by November. 

The Trump campaign and LaCivita pushed back against the Beast’s findings but did not offer the publication alternative numbers for the co-manager’s earnings.

“While the individuals responsible for attempting this kamikaze operation are known, their self-serving attempt to defame me will not distract us from continuing to deliver for President Trump and winning this election,” said LaCivita, taking a jab at Lewandowski.

“This entire story is fabricated nonsense, cooked up by talentless grifters who lack the integrity and skill to contribute to President Trump’s continued electoral success,” he said. “Every member of this team, myself included, has been fairly and responsibly compensated, with the priority of electing President Trump at the forefront of every strategic and financial decision we have made.”

Other Republicans have previously called out LaCivita for his grifting. Last year, an “opposition research” memo put forth by a super PAC backing Governor Ron DeSantis accused LaCivita of “cashing in on Trump” for “personal enrichment,” according to documents acquired by the Beast. They found that LaCivita pocketed $15.7 million and $4 million respectively from two of Trump’s super PACs during the 2022 midterms.

LaCivita’s take-home pay stands in even starker comparison when you consider that Trump’s campaign is struggling to match Kamala Harris in fundraising as the election nears. But don’t count on LaCivita to give up the hustle anytime soon.

Donald Trump abruptly backed out of yet another prearranged interview, notifying CNBC that the network’s anticipated sit-down interview with the Republican presidential nominee, scheduled for later this week, would not be happening.

The schedule change was revealed by Squawk Box’s conservative-leaning host Joe Kernan, who specified on air Tuesday that “Trump canceled.”

Sources that spoke with The Daily Beast noted that the former president had initially accepted the invitation to speak on the business network. Three hosts anchor Squawk Box, one of whom is Andrew Ross Sorkin, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump since his initial 2016 campaign.

Instead, Trump has relegated his TV appearances to friendlier, more sycophantic networks, including Fox News, whose anchor Maria Bartiromo interviewed the former president over the weekend. Bartiromo did not interrupt or correct Trump when he claimed that the real Election Day threat is the “enemy from within” while suggesting that the military should forcibly involve itself in handling the election results.

“We have some very bad people,” Trump said on Sunday. “We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the—and it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

But the sudden cancellation echoes Trump’s refusal to appear on 60 Minutes last week, defying a long-held preelection tradition, stretching back to 1968, in which both U.S. presidential nominees participate in sit-down interviews to discuss the finer details of their policy stances.

During its Monday night broadcast last week, CBS News’s Scott Pelley said that Trump backed out of his scheduled interview with 60 Minutes at the last minute on the basis that they “would fact-check the interview.”

“We fact-check every story,” Pelley said.

Meanwhile, Trump has ranted and raved about Vice President Kamala Harris’s media appearances, repeatedly accusing the Democratic presidential nominee of both doing too much and too little by way of press coverage, including actually following through on last week’s 60 Minutes interview.

North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson finally addressed accusations against him of wild impropriety Tuesday morning, weeks after a bombshell CNN report revealed that the MAGA politico had made a slew of disturbing comments on a pornographic messaging board prior to his foray into politics.

The brief, sparsely attended press conference featured just Robinson and his attorney, Jesse Binnall. The outlandish Republican announced his intention to sue the “left-wing” news outlet for defamation, seeking $50 million in damages for “reputational harm” over what he described as a “high-tech lynching.”

The CNN report, released in September, revealed Robinson had allegedly commented on websites about his desire to own slaves, peeping in womens’ locker rooms, and enjoying transgender porn. The outlet tied the account to Robinson via a “litany” of common biographical details and a shared email address. He also used his full name on his site account. The revelation saw a swift, mass exodus of Robinson’s campaign staffers after he refused multiple offers from I.T. specialists to help him investigate the origin of the comments.

In an attempt to wipe away the impact of the early October surprise, Robinson on Tuesday criticized the report’s publication as “one of the greatest examples of political interference in this state’s history and quite possibly this nation’s history.” Binnall, who worked for Donald Trump for several years and helped push the former president’s 2020 election conspiracy, argued that CNN had violated “journalistic standards” and “interfered with this election.”

The Republican gubernatorial nominee’s case will, of course, require evidence that the report had materially damaged his reputation, which was already considered pretty extreme due to Robinson’s openness about his other beliefs, including that he didn’t think schools would be getting “shot up” if they mandated instruction of the Bible in the classroom and that some people just “need killing!”

Robinson has also shared a host of his other disturbing positions online, including posts in which he minimized the horrors of the Holocaust, claimed a “satanic marxist” had made the movie Black Panther to pull “shekels” out of Black audiences, likened women getting abortions to murderers, and derided gay people as “filth” and “maggots.” Robinson has also expressed archaic views about women’s role in society, telling a Charlotte-area church in 2022 that Christians are “called to be led by men.”

But the dynamic duo of Robinson and his attorney had no smart response as to why the party had seemingly abandoned him in light of the latest slew of accusations.

“If your proof is so good, then why aren’t other Republicans standing with you? You’re by yourself,” one reporter asked.

“We stand with the voters—or, Governor Robinson stands with the voters of North Carolina,” Binnall said. “We’re going to go make our case in court. This case is for a jury.”

Donald Trump ended his town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, early Monday night and bizarrely made everyone watch him listen to music for nearly 40 minutes onstage.

Trump concluded the event after a few questions and a couple of medical emergencies in the crowd, despite telling his supporters that he would take more questions. Operatic music then started playing as Trump stood onstage, swaying and occasionally pretending to conduct the music.

The event bizarrely went on with Trump standing awkwardly onstage as “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” played. The crowd seemed to be either sitting and waiting for something else, or they began to sway like they were at a concert. Trump then said he wanted to take more questions but changed his mind and asked for “YMCA” to be played, “nice and loud,” to wrap up the event.

But strangely, the event didn’t end there. Trump continued to stay onstage as what seemed to be his campaign playlist kept playing, running through songs like “Hallelujah,” “Nothing Compares 2 U,” “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and “November Rain.” Then finally, he gave South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem a kiss and stepped offstage.

It’s the latest, and strangest, example of Trump showing clear signs of mental decline, even as he insists otherwise. Just over a week ago at a rally, he struggled to pronounce words like “Midwestern” and “evangelicals,” and compared himself to a fly. His speech patterns and alertness seem to have gotten worse, with cognitive experts seeing compelling evidence that he is much less alert now.

While the media is finally starting to give the issue attention, it remains to be seen if Monday’s bizarre rally will be framed correctly. The Republican presidential nominee is not well, but so far, news coverage seems to ignore all of the clear warning signs.

In the swing state of Georgia, a judge has ruled that election officials cannot refuse to certify election results.

In the groundbreaking ruling on Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney stated that “certifying election results … is mandatory.”

“No election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance.”

Obviously, the judge noted, county election officials have the duty to “investigate concerns about miscounts.”  But otherwise, election officials have a duty to certify the results no later than 5 p.m. on the Monday following the election.

The ruling aims to put a stop to any unnecessary delay or holdup thanks to election deniers. Fulton County was the epicenter of Donald Trump’s 2020 scheme to overturn the election. 

McBurney’s ruling came after Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, challenged her duty to certify election results. Legal challenges like this one have played an important role in the GOP’s “election integrity” efforts going into November, as election deniers are filing lawsuits across the country to change election procedures.

“If election superintendents were, as Plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so—because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud—refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced,” wrote the judge.

Earlier this year, Fulton County was given an independent election monitor in response to the issues that arose during the 2020 presidential election. At least 19 county election officials, most Republican, have voted not to certify election results since then, according to an investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Trump has actively cheered on these officials.

This ruling has thrown a wrench in efforts to suppress election results in the state in November. Another similar ruling is still pending in a separate case filed by state and national Democrats.

Donald Trump can’t seem to handle sharing the limelight with his Democratic opponent.

The Republican presidential nominee is still obsessing about Vice President Kamala Harris’s media appearances more than a week after she lured millions of Americans to CBS with her traditional preelection 60 Minutes interview—something that Trump practically chickened out of over the network’s intent to fact-check.

“I’ve done 60 Minutes many times, even back in the good ol’ days when Journalism was respected and legit, but I have never seen a very poor answer being REPLACED by another, totally unrelated answer, in order to save the person great personal and professional embarrassment,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday morning, referring to an instance in which the legacy show appeared to edit one of her answers on Israel.

“What 60 Minutes did in doing this was Election Interference and Fraud. It is the worst and most blatant scandal in Broadcast History, and will not be soon forgotten. Just watch!”

A few hours before, very late Monday night, Trump attempted to rewrite recent history in another portion of his digital tirade. He claimed that Harris had rejected a potential second presidential debate when, in truth, Trump aggressively backed out of going toe-to-toe with the vice president again after his disastrous performance in the first round—something that alarmed Republican donors.

But Trump’s rant featured some definitively weird turns, as well. In a post made past midnight, Trump claimed that Harris had made “desperate requests” for his medical records, specifically about his cholesterol, which he promised was “flawless.” He then proceeded to argue that he had, in turn, seen Harris’s health report.

“However, I have just seen Kamala’s Report,” he wrote, “and it is not good. According to her Doctor’s Report, she suffers from ‘urticaria,’ defined as ‘a rash of round, red welts on the skin that itch intensely, sometimes with dangerous swelling.’ She also has ‘allergic rhinitis and allergic conjunctivitis,’ a very messy and dangerous situation,” Trump wrote about Harris’s allergies.

But of course, the MAGA politico couldn’t let the mention slip without circling back to the prime-time interview Harris got under her belt that he couldn’t bring himself to do.

“These are deeply serious conditions that clearly impact her functioning,” Trump said. “Maybe that is why she can’t answer even the simplest of questions asked by 60 Minutes, and others. What is this all about? I don’t have these problems.”

JD Vance credited Donald Trump for his family being able to get off of Medicaid and onto private health insurance, at the vice presidential debate earlier this month. But he isn’t telling the whole story: that it was due to Obamacare.

Vance’s mother was able to buy private insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplace, run by Ohio, after overcoming substance abuse, becoming financially stable, and earning too much to stay on Medicaid. At the debate, Vance was also referring to a cousin in Florida who got private insurance through the state marketplace, a campaign spokesperson told The Washington Post.

Vance said that Trump fixed a lot of issues with the ACA after Republicans failed to repeal the bill early in his presidency. But this belies the fact that Vance’s family members reaped the benefits of the ACA despite Trump and the rest of the GOP repeatedly attempting to undermine, and then remove, it.

If Trump had been successful, the ACA and its marketplaces would not exist in their current form, if at all, said Andrew Sprung, an independent health analyst, to The Washington Post.

“If any Vance family members transitioned to the marketplace because they earned out of Medicaid, they should be grateful that Trump and Republicans in Congress failed to repeal and replace the marketplace with an alternative that would have provided far less affordable coverage,” Sprung said.

Vance’s current praise of Trump also goes against what he was saying in 2017, when the then president and Republicans in Congress were trying to repeal and replace the bill. Back then, Vance said that Republicans’ proposals would hurt low-income Americans.

“The ‘full repeal’ bill is nothing of the sort—it preserves the regulatory structure of Obamacare, but withdraws its supports for the poor,” Vance wrote in a column for The New York Times seven years ago.

Vance’s health care proposals, like Trump’s,  essentially bring back health insurance companies’ ability to charge more for preexisting conditions. This would hurt the same low-income Americans Vance was supposedly concerned about in 2017, and stick older Americans with those conditions with a higher bill, and that could include Vance’s family members.

Elon Musk’s super PAC has already hit a major bump in the road in its canvassing operations for Donald Trump.

A glitchy door-knocking app means Musk’s America PAC is paying canvassers, with no way to verify that the volunteers are actually getting the word out about Trump.

America PAC is aiming to turn out at least 800,000 voters in swing states to support Trump this November. But the Campaign Sidekick app used by Trump and Musk’s canvassers is plagued by design problems and glitches.

As The Guardian reported, the app requires enough internet to be able to stream 4K video. As door knockers often do their routes in isolated rural locations, that internet speed is not available. The PAC is then forced to rely on “offline walkbooks” to make sure the volunteers are completing their routes. The only problem? Those walkbooks have no geolocation and don’t always upload properly, making it impossible to track the canvassing efforts.

“Maybe Elon Musk can give his canvassers a Starlink,” one America PAC political operative joked to The Guardian.

Uniquely in this campaign, canvassers are paid by the door. This gives people a way to hack the system. With no geolocator, canvassers can operate with little supervision, “speed-running” through their list or just playing hooky. Republicans have struggled with this in the past, with instances of volunteers falsifying data and just hanging out in a casino.

As opposed to Musk’s other functionality failures—like X’s buggy issues and Teslas bursting into flame—this particular Elon fail may actually give Democrats something to smile about. And though it may seem like a niche issue, Musk’s America PAC has essentially hijacked Trump’s door-knocking outreach operations, meaning that issues with the canvassing operation could have real implications on Trump’s outreach in swing states and on Musk’s chances to prove himself worthy to Trump.

Trump’s co-campaign chief Chris LaCivita, of course, denied there was any issue. “Our canvassing apps work fine, and we’ve invested in new technology this cycle that is unmatched in politics to supplement our efforts. This is a clear hit job from a failed vendor who we’ll be sure to name and shame as soon as we finish winning this campaign.”

MAGA Republicans have begun touting the arrest of an armed man outside Donald Trump’s rally Saturday as a “thwarted” third assassination attempt, but federal investigators said that there was no indication that the man was there to hurt the Republican presidential nominee. In fact, the man said he was a Trump fan. 

Vem Miller, a 49-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada, resident, was arrested outside Trump’s disastrous rally in Coachella, California, after he was found to be carrying two unregistered firearms, ammunition, and several fake passports, according to the Associated Press. He was also driving an unregistered black SUV with a fake license plate, and carried fake press credentials. 

CBS’s Scott McFarlane reported Monday that authorities don’t believe Trump was in any danger from Miller. “A federal law enforcement source tells CBS News there is no indication that this was an assassination attempt,” McFarlane said. 

“In a statement to CBS News, Miller calls the allegations ‘a bunch of lies’ and said police made a mistake,” McFarlane said. “In a video he posted overnight, Miller says he’s a staunch support of the former president, has been active in helping him get reelected, and was invited to the rally.”

In a 75-minute video statement, Miller said he had received a special invitation from the Republican Party of Nevada to attend the event, and said he had been to “countless” Trump events before that. Miller claimed that he’d spoken to Don Jr. and Eric Trump, knew many people within the Trump family, and had even met Trump multiple times, according to Newsweek.  

The validity of Miller’s statements is not yet determined, but his remarks did not seem to betray any intent to harm the Republican presidential nominee. 

It seems that MAGA acolytes are running with their own story. 

“A third would-be assassin was caught yesterday with a fake VIP/press pass and loaded weapons trying to get into President Trump’s Coachella rally,” wrote Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna in a post on X Sunday. “This needs to stop. Please join me in praying for President Trump.”

She added a screenshot of a New York Post headline that described a “Third Trump assassination thwarted.”

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also got in on the thoughts and prayers. “Yesterday a man in possession of multiple firearms was arrested outside the Coachella rally. Pray for President Trump, his family, and the entire Trump Team. This appears to be a thwarted third assassination attempt,” Greene wrote in a post on X Sunday.