Trump threatens to jail opponents in escalating rhetoric ahead of crucial debate

MOSINEE, Wis. — Days before his first — and likely only — debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump posted a warning on his social media site threatening to jail those “engaged in unscrupulous behavior” in an election he said would be subject to intense scrutiny.

“WHEN I WIN, those who CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, including lengthy prison sentences, so that this perversion of justice never happens again,” Trump wrote, once again casting doubt on the integrity of the election, even though cheating is incredibly rare.

“Be vigilant,” he continued, “because this legal exposure extends to lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters and corrupt election officials. Those who engage in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, arrested and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never before seen in our country.”

Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of president to exact revenge if he wins a second term. There is no evidence of the kind of fraud he claims marred the 2020 election; in fact, dozens of courts, state Republican officials and his own administration have said he lost fairly.

Just a few days ago, Trump himself acknowledged in a podcast interview that he had indeed “narrowly lost.”

While Trump’s campaign aides and allies have urged him to stay the course on Harris and make the election a referendum on issues like inflation and border security, Trump has recently veered off course.

(Trump rejects new warnings of Russian interference in election)

On Friday, he made a stunning statement before television cameras, in which he discussed a series of past accusations of sexual assault, describing several of them in graphic detail, while denying his accusers’ allegations. Earlier, he voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on an appeal of a decision finding him liable for sexual abuse, highlighting his legal woes in the final stretch of the campaign.

Earlier Saturday, Trump drew on familiar grievances about everything from his indictments to Russian interference in the 2016 election as he campaigned in one of the most deeply Republican areas of battleground Wisconsin.

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

(Harris and Trump prepare for Tuesday’s debate in very different ways)

There is no evidence that President Joe Biden or Harris had any influence on the decisions of the Justice Department or state prosecutors to charge the former president.

(The crimes of January 6th did indeed occur. The trials, the videos, and thousands of pages of evidence prove it.)

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

Harris has so far agreed to participate in only one debate, which will be hosted by ABC.

At the rally, Trump laid out his plans to “drain the swamp,” a return to his victorious 2016 campaign message, when he presented himself as an outsider challenging the status quo. Although Trump has spent four years in the Oval Office, he has vowed again to “drive out the corrupt political class” if he wins again and to “defatten our government for the first time, significantly, in 60 years.”

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

After again smearing the congressional committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s Capitol by his supporters after his 2020 election defeat, Trump told a crowd of thousands that he would “expeditiously review the files of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime” and sign their pardons on his first day back in office.

(Russia’s Election Influence Efforts Are Sophisticated, Officials Say)

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

He also said he would “completely overhaul” what he called “Kamala’s corrupt department of injustice.”

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

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

Harris and Trump have traveled frequently to Wisconsin this year, a state where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several opinion polls taken after Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a tight race.

Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the “blue wall” states that must be won. Biden, who was in Wisconsin on Thursday, won the state in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. Trump won it by a slightly larger margin, nearly 23,000 votes, in 2016.

As Trump campaigned, Harris took a brief break from her debate prep to go to Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, where she purchased several spice blends. One customer saw the Democratic candidate and began to openly cry as Harris hugged her and told her, “Everything’s going to be okay. We’re all in this together.”

(Voters have already made up their minds about Trump. They are still undecided about Harris.)

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

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

“It is time to turn the page on divisions,” she said. “It is time to bring our country together and chart a new course.”

Trump’s rally was held in Mosinee, a town in central Wisconsin with a population of about 4,500. It is located in the 7th Congressional District, a largely rural, Republican-majority area in a purple state.

During his speech, he lashed out at Harris in dark and threatening language, saying that if the woman he calls “Comrade Kamala Harris gets four more years, you will be living in a veritable banana republic” ruled by “anarchy” and “tyranny.”

Trump also blasted the administration’s border policy, calling Democrats’ approach “suicidal” and accusing them of “importing murderers, child predators and serial rapists from all over the planet.”

Numerous studies have shown that immigrants, including those in the United States illegally, commit fewer violent crimes than U.S.-born citizens. Violent crime declined again in the United States last year, continuing a downward trend after a spike during the pandemic.

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

“The Justice Department said Russia could be involved in our election 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 celebrated his 68th birthday Saturday at his first-ever Trump rally. He hopes a second Trump administration will tackle “cancel culture” and return the country to its “founding past.”

“Previous administrations have said they want to fundamentally change America,” Osulden said. “Fundamentally changing America is a bad thing.”

Many supporters drove hours from across Wisconsin to attend Trump’s speech. Some came from even further away.

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

“Trump is a rock star,” Moon Jae-in said. “He’s amazing. People see that he represents them and the deep state that is trying to kill him and eliminate him. But he remains strong and he stands up for normal people.”

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

Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July, and Trump has already made four stops in the state, most recently 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 to Milwaukee on Monday, where he spoke at a Labor Day rally organized by unions.

Bauer reported from Madison and Colvin from New York. Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.