Donald Trump — Domestic threats and military force
SOURCE REVIEW · SEPTEMBER 26, 2026
Role at the time: Former president; Republican presidential nominee
Statement date: October 13, 2024 (broadcast date)
The statement
…if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military…
Asked about Election Day disorder, Trump discussed domestic threats and possible military involvement; the scope of the remarks was disputed afterward.
What happened
Maria Bartiromo asked Trump about possible Election Day unrest on Sunday Morning Futures. His answer shifted toward people inside the United States and included the military reference excerpted above. Later in the interview, in a separate exchange about bureaucrats, he applied his domestic-enemy language to Adam Schiff. These passages must not be spliced together or described as one uninterrupted sentence.
Why it is here — editorial assessment
The editorial concern is how a political leader describes possible military involvement in domestic political conflict. The remarks do not establish that a deployment occurred, or an order to attack Schiff. Trump was a candidate and former president at the time, not the commander in chief on that Election Day.
Their response
Bartiromo subsequently said she understood the answer to concern outside agitators, rather than politicians. At a later Fox town hall, Trump denied threatening anyone. These explanations should be weighed against the original interview, not omitted from the record.
Verification notes — September 26, 2026
Broadcast date and topic: corroborated by contemporaneous Axios reporting. Sequence and surrounding questions: checked against Mediaite’s transcript. Later denial: checked against CNN’s October 17 broadcast transcript. The Fox upload is dated October 14, which differs from the October 13 broadcast. A caption transcript was retrieved directly from Fox Business’s YouTube upload: the Election Day question begins at 8:03, the turn toward domestic threats at 8:52, and the military reference at 9:10–9:17. The captions contain transcription irregularities, so they are used to locate the passage, not to certify a new verbatim quotation. The published excerpt is corroborated by contemporaneous CNN reporting; this archive has not independently transcribed the audio. No conclusion about the legality of a hypothetical deployment is made here.
Review basis: the published sources identified above. This archive has not independently transcribed the recording. Read the excerpt together with its surrounding context and subsequent response.
Evidence and source provenance
Editorial notice
Inclusion in The Voices of Treason is not an allegation or finding that anyone committed the federal crime of treason. Quoted speech, reported facts, and editorial interpretation are distinct. The entry date is not the statement date.
