Mr. Trump's violent hypothetical came as he has recently intensified the dark and at times threatening language he uses toward his political opponents. The former president, whose lie that he won the 2020 election spurred some of his supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, once again on Thursday referred to a pernicious "enemy within" that needed to be addressed. He has previously described his enemies as "vermin" that needed to be rooted out. (Ms. Cheney was the top Republican on the House committee that investigated Mr. Trump's role in the Capitol riot.)

His language reflects the charged environment surrounding this year's election. Democrats and some Republicans have increasingly warned that Mr. Trump exhibits authoritarian tendencies, with Ms. Harris recently calling him a "fascist." Mr. Trump and his allies have argued that such language has fueled an overheated political climate that they argue has led to political violence, ignoring that Mr. Trump has long used similar language to describe Democrats.

Throughout Thursday night's interview, Mr. Trump's third event of the day, he gave a series of rambling answers in which he flung personal insults at his critics, at one point relived his 2016 presidential campaign and used dark language to make exaggerated claims about immigration.

. . . .“If Ronald Reagan came back from the dead — at the height of Ronald Reagan, if he went to California to have a rally, he would have 250, 300 people in a ballroom some place,” Mr. Trump told the crowd. “We have fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, a hundred thousand people.” .