Trump threatens to lock up opponents in escalating rhetoric ahead of crucial debate

MOSINEE, Wis. — With just days to go 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 unconscionable conduct” during this election, which he said would be subject to intense scrutiny.

“WHEN I WIN, those who CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which will include long prison sentences, so that this perversion of justice cannot happen again,” Trump wrote late Saturday, once again casting doubt on the integrity of the election even though cheating is incredibly rare.

“Please be aware,” he continued, “that this legal exposure extends to lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, and corrupt election officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be tracked down, caught, and prosecuted at a level we have sadly never seen before in our country.”

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

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

Although Trump’s campaign staff and allies have urged him to keep his focus on Harris and make the election a referendum on issues like inflation and border security, Trump has veered significantly off course in recent days.

On Friday, he gave a stunning statement to news cameras in which he detailed a series of previous allegations of sexual misconduct, several of which he described in graphic detail even as he denied the allegations of his accusers. Earlier, he had voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on his appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual assault, shifting the focus to his legal troubles in the final stages of the campaign.

Earlier Saturday, Trump aired his familiar grievances about everything from his criminal charges to Russian interference in the 2016 election while campaigning in one of the most Republican parts of the battleground, Wisconsin.

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

There is no evidence that President Joe Biden or Harris influenced the Justice Department or prosecutors’ decisions to charge the former president.

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

Harris has agreed to one debate for now, which will be hosted by ABC.

At the rally, Trump outlined his plans to “drain the swamp” — a throwback to his winning campaign message from 2016, when he challenged the status quo as an outsider. Despite spending four years in the Oval Office, Trump again vowed to “drive out the corrupt political class” if he wins again and to “cut the fat out of our government in a meaningful way for the first time in 60 years.”

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

After again smearing the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s Capitol by his supporters following his 2020 election loss, Trump told the thousands in attendance that he would “swiftly review the cases of every political prisoner wrongly victimized by the Harris regime” and sign their pardons on his first day back in office.

Trump has repeatedly defended people imprisoned for crimes including violent attacks on law enforcement officers.

And he said he would “completely reform” Kamala’s corrupt ministry of injustice.

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

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

Both Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Wisconsin this year, a state where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several polls of Wisconsin voters conducted after Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump locked in a neck-and-neck race.

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

While Trump was campaigning, Harris took a brief break from debate prep to visit Penzey’s Spices in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, where she bought several spice mixes. A customer saw the Democratic candidate and began to openly cry when Harris hugged her and told her, “We’re going to be OK. We’re all in this together.”

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

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

“It’s time to turn the page on division,” she said. “It’s time to unite our country, to find a new way forward.”

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

During his speech, he launched into a dark and ominous frenzy against Harris, claiming that if the woman he calls “Comrade Kamala Harris” gets another four years, you will be living in a full-fledged banana republic ruled by “anarchy” and “tyranny.”

Trump also strongly criticized the administration’s border policies, calling the Democrats’ approach “suicidal” and accusing them of “importing murderers, child molesters and serial rapists from around the world.”

Many studies have shown that immigrants, including those in the country illegally, commit fewer violent crimes than native-born citizens. Violent crime in the U.S. fell again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.

He dismissed warnings from U.S. officials about continued Russian efforts to spread disinformation in the run-up to the November election, including an indictment filed last week alleging that a media outlet with ties to six conservative influencers was secretly funded by employees of Russian state media.

“The Justice Department said Russia might get involved in our elections again,” Trump told the crowd. “And you know, the whole world laughed at it this time.”

Among those in attendance was Dale Osuldsen, who celebrated his 68th birthday at his first-ever Trump rally on Saturday. He hopes a second Trump administration will tackle “cancel culture” and return the country to its “fundamental past.”

“We’ve had previous administrations that said they wanted to fundamentally change America,” Osulden said. “Fundamentally changing America is a bad thing.”

Many supporters drove hours from all over Wisconsin to see Trump speak, with some coming from even further.

Sean Moon, a Tennessee musician who releases MAGA rap music under the stage name “King Bullethead,” was screaming his songs from a truck in the event’s parking lot. As a musician, he said Trump rallies are like a raucous concert.

“Trump is a rock star,” Moon said. “He’s incredible. People see that he represents them and the deep state that’s trying to kill him and take him out. But he stands strong and he represents the average person.”

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

The Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July, and Trump has visited the state four times before, most recently last week in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, filled the same Milwaukee arena where the Republicans held their national convention last month 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 labor unions.

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