JD Vance claims Trump, who talked about the 'enemy from within', would never 'silence' opponents

With the US presidential election campaign for both political parties entering the final days before Tuesday’s vote, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance has seemingly sought to detoxify Donald Trump’s image by claiming his running mate has never called for his critics to be “censored or silenced”.

Yes, really.

Vance made the comments in the swing state of Pennsylvania on Sunday, just days after Trump fantasised about Kamala Harris supporter and staunch Trump critic Liz Cheney being shot at.

In remarks which Cheney herself criticised, branding Trump “unstable”, the Republican said: “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”

Not only that, but on the same day Vance praised his running mate, Trump had commented that he ‘doesn’t mind’ what he has long called “fake news” being shot at by an assassin in order to get to him.

Democrat duo Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have also pushed several messages condemning Trump’s remarks to Fox News about the “enemy from within” - such as “radical left lunatics” - who should be “easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military”.

A clip of Vance’s comments, shared by journalist Acyn, has had a few Community Notes added to it pointing to other examples demonstrating the opposite, such as when a former Twitter employee testified that the Trump White House urged the company to delete a tweet by model Chrissy Teigen insulting the then president.

Another links to a Washington Post report from September chronicling instances where the Republican candidate has said criticism of judges and justices “should be illegal”.

Other social media users have shared countless other examples, such as calling for negative polls about him - like the one out of Iowa this week - to be made illegal:

Awkward.

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