Former President Donald Trump said during a Fox News town hall which aired Wednesday that when he recently threatened to deploy the military against the “enemy from within,” he was talking about mainstream Democrats like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her family. Trump’s damning admission should be humiliating for people who tried to help Trump clean up his initial comments — including Fox chief political anchor Bret Baier.

Trump claimed that “the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” which he described as “radical left lunatics” during a Fox interview that aired Sunday. “I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen,” he told Maria Bartiromo. Later in the interview, Trump returned to the subject of “the enemy from within,” citing as an example Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Trump’s meandering and nonspecific commentary is often difficult to follow. But he constantly uses authoritarian rhetoric, frequently accuses his political opponents of committing crimes including treason, and was recently described by his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as “fascist to the core.”

As critics pointed out the danger inherent in someone like Trump threatening to use the military against a nebulous domestic group, some of his supporters tried to rewrite the remarks to make them seem more palatable. 

Baier took up their cause on Tuesday's Special Report. After saying Trump’s comments about “the enemy from within” were “raising eyebrows,” the Fox anchor aired a portion of the former president’s statement, criticism from MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s claim that his “belief” is that Trump was referring to undocumented immigrants who commit crimes.

“Gov. Youngkin trying there,” Baier said. “But I think JD Vance more on point where he said that if there is some big protest or something, that that is what the former president is talking about. He later talked about Adam Schiff, about being one of those enemies from within, or crazy left. And so a lot of people jumped on that. It is his words that cause some concern in a lot of corners.”

Baier later asked Josh Holmes, a former Republican congressional staffer and co-host of the Ruthless podcast, about the comments. Holmes replied that Trump was “obviously” discussing the possibility of urban unrest after the election, adding, “I think that’s what we’re talking about very clearly here. They can try to make it into something else.”

But at the town hall, which Fox reportedly stocked with Trump’s supporters, Fox’s Harris Faulkner asked Trump to address criticism of the “enemy from within” comment. In his response, Trump cited “the Pelosis” as an example of who he was talking about, adding, “these people, they are so sick and they are so evil.”

In October 2022, a right-wing conspiracy theorist broke into the Pelosi home in San Francisco reportedly intending to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage. Finding the then-speaker absent, he assaulted and critically injured her husband Paul with a hammer. The assailant was ultimately found guilty of a slew of federal crimes and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Baier’s Fox colleagues responded by spinning up more conspiracy theories about Paul Pelosi’s assault, while Trump has repeatedly cracked jokes about it on the campaign trail.

Baier regularly downplays Trump’s authoritarian comments and actions on his Special Report program, where he is interviewing Vice President Kamala Harris for tonight’s broadcast.