As former President Donald Trump has repeated his “enemy from within” line on the campaign trail to refer to political opponents, his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), came to his defense, saying that “broken” leadership in the United States is worse than any foreign adversary to the country.
Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, Vance was asked whether he thought the political opponents Trump has referred to in his comment, specifically Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), are “more dangerous” than foreign adversaries such as Russia and China.
“Well, I think what Donald Trump said is that those folks pose a greater threat to [the] United States’s peace and security because America is strong enough to stand up to any foreign adversary,” Vance said, before being pressed on whether he thought certain political opponents “pose a much larger threat” than Russia and China.
“What he said — and I do agree with this — what he said is that the biggest threat we have in our country, it’s not a foreign adversary because we can handle these guys. … Look, under Nancy Pelosi’s long life in public leadership, the United States has gone from the preeminent industrial power in the world to second next to China. That fundamentally belongs on Nancy Pelosi’s shoulders. And if we’re going to have a more prosperous country, we’ve got to recognize that our own leadership is why we lost our industrial base to China. Our own leadership is failing to lead this country into peace and prosperity,” Vance said.
Trump faced criticism after using the line in a Fox News interview with Maria Bartiromo earlier this month.
In that interview, he said, “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.”
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He also said that “it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
Trump also recently claimed, without evidence, that an “enemy from within” leaked highly classified U.S. intelligence documents involving Israel. The FBI is investigating that incident.