Vance defends Trump's 'enemy from within' remark

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio,) the Republican vice-presidential nominee, defended former President Trump for calling his domestic political opponents “the enemy from within" and for saying they pose the greatest political threat to the country.

In a Sunday interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker pressed Vance on whether he agrees with Trump that people like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) are more dangerous than Russia and China.

“What he said, and I do agree with this – what he said is that the biggest threat we have in our country, it's not a foreign adversary, because we can handle these guys. We can handle foreign conflicts,” Vance told Welker.

“We can’t handle – look, under Nancy Pelosi’s long life in public leadership, the United States has gone from the preeminent industrial power of the world to second, next to China. That fundamentally belongs on Nancy Pelosi's shoulders, and if we're going to have a more prosperous country, we've got to recognize our own leadership is why we lost our industrial base to China,” he continued. “Our own leadership is failing to lead this country into peace and prosperity.”

Vance said Americans are struggling to afford groceries, the military is struggling to recruit, and the country is struggling to control the southern border.

“That’s a way bigger threat than any foreign threat. And, yes, it's caused by broken leadership,” Vance said.

Trump called his political opponents “the enemy from within” earlier this month and then doubled down on his comments, singling out Schiff and Pelosi.

“These people — they’re so sick, and they’re so evil. If they would spend their time trying to make America great again, it would be so easy to make this country great,” Trump said. “I’m not threatening anybody. They’re the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations.”