Trump ups threatening rhetoric before debate

Trump's rhetoric "turned more ominous with a pledge to prosecute anyone who 'cheats' in the election"

(Image credit: Scott Olson / Getty Images)

What happened

Vice President Kamala Harris has been keeping a low profile in Pittsburgh while preparing for Tuesday's debate. Donald Trump, on social media and in speeches, has "escalated his vows to use the raw power of the state to impose and maintain control and to intimidate and punish anyone he perceives as working against him," The New York Times said.

Who said what

Over the weekend, Trump's rhetoric "turned more ominous with a pledge to prosecute anyone who 'cheats' in the election," The Associated Press said, repeating his false claims that he won in 2020 but was robbed of a second term by fraud. He also urged local police to "watch for the voter fraud," an "apparent attempt to enlist law enforcement that would be legally dubious."

Trump "believes anyone who breaks the law should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, including criminals who engage in election fraud," campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. Strikingly, Trump himself "has been convicted of 34 felonies" in New York and "charged in both federal and state court with conspiring to fraudulently alter the outcome of the 2020 election," the Times said. And while some of his recent comments "could be discounted as his usual hyperbolic, norm-busting rhetoric, his record in office suggests" they "cannot be treated as unserious or figurative."

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What next?

Journalists aren't going to suddenly start calling Trump an "emotionally unstable" would-be autocrat who's "running because he wants to stay out of prison, get revenge on his enemies, exercise untrammeled power and gain access to even more money," Tom Nichols said at The Atlantic. "But if Trump's comments this weekend are not the first questions at the debate — if his threat to democracy is not the only question — then there is no point in debates at all."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.