Donald Trump has outdone himself. 

His rhetoric has long been extreme but, in campaign remarks as it heads towards a close, it’s more so.

Consider the direct quotes from his “enemy within” interview on Fox News on 13 October.

Asked about “bureaucrats undermining you” in a second term, he replied: “We have two enemies: we have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within.

“And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries.”

Referring to Adam Schiff, a Democratic candidate for the Senate, he says: “Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, who’s a total sleazebag, is going to become a senator. But I call him the enemy from within.”

Asked whether he expects chaos on election day from outside agitators, he replied: “I think the bigger problem are the people from within.

“We have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics.

“It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary by the military.”

Critics have interpreted the remarks as a threat to use the military against political opponents, even though he would need to be president to try.

They accuse Trump of shaping an authoritarian agenda – true, they say, because it’s laid out in his own words.

Donald Trump, after all, is a man who has used dehumanising language in discussing particular groups, has undermined institutions that keep a check on power, threatened the media and once told an interviewer he would not be a dictator “except on day one.”

If he does have the look and sound of an autocrat-in-waiting, it is not seen or heard by his supporters.

‘Far-left activists’

Of the “enemy within” remarks, Trump’s running mate JD Vance dismissed the notion he was talking of using the military against political rivals.

He said: “We have various far-left activists who are talking about civil unrest in this country if Donald Trump were to be elected president again.

“If you have people who are rioting in American streets, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, whatever their political persuasion is, we’re not going to let that happen.

“We believe in law and order in this country. That’s what Donald Trump is talking about.”

It is a question of language and how it lands.

‘Fascist to the core’

In an explosive intervention into the discussion, Trump has been branded a “fascist” by his most senior military adviser in office.

General Mark Milley, retired, is quoted as calling Trump “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country”.

It is authoritative commentary from a man who was in the room and it finds an echo.

Major-General Randy Manner, retired, sees parallels between Trump and Adolf Hitler, no less.

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Maj-Gen. Manner is a member of the National Security Leaders for America, a group of retired, senior members of the military.

They span the political divide but, as a collective body, have thrown their backing behind Kamala Harris.

Maj-Gen. Manner told Sky News: “It is 100% true, according to the definition, that Trump is a fascist.

“People who are powerful and authoritarian align, so the dangers to the world are significant, in terms of worsening the threshold for peaceful co-existence.

“Many of the attributes of what Trump has been doing here in the United States emulate the actions taken by Adolf Hitler between 1922 and 1933.

“There are so many similarities of style, of technique, of divide the people and have a small group of thugs do your dirty work for you, without any regard to the rule of law.

“There are very real similarities.”

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Kamala Harris clearly believes it presents an opportunity to unstick the polls.

Having bounced on to the campaign stage extolling joy and opportunity, she has pivoted back to democracy and the threat posed, she claims, by Donald Trump.

It will be for the voter to assess what Trump means and whether what he says should be taken seriously – and if not, why not?

There were two planned executions in the US on Thursday – one was halted over questions of the suspect’s guilt and the other went ahead after the death row inmate asked to be killed.

The Texas Supreme Court stopped the scheduled execution of Robert Roberson, who was convicted of killing his two-year-old daughter in 2002.

He would have become the first person in the US to be put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

Meanwhile, Derrick Dearman, 36, was pronounced dead at 6.14pm local time in Alabama after he dropped his appeal earlier this year and asked a judge to carry out his death sentence.

Dearman broke into a home where his estranged girlfriend had taken refuge, in a drug-fuelled rampage in 2016, and killed five people.

At least 20 people have been put to death in the US this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

But numbers have been trending down in recent decades.

‘He was shocked, to say the least’

A flurry of last-ditch legal challenges and weeks of public pressure led to a late-night stay of execution for Roberson.

His supporters claim he was sent to death row based on flawed science.

In the hours leading up to the ruling, Roberson sat in a prison cell just a few metres from his country’s busiest death chamber at the Walls Unit, in Huntsville, as he waited for certainty over his fate.

“He was shocked, to say the least,” said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Amanda Hernandez, who spoke with Roberson after the court stayed his execution.

“He praised god and he thanked his supporters.”

The 57-year-old was convicted of killing his daughter Nikki Curtis but his lawyers and some medical experts have said she died from complications related to pneumonia.

A bipartisan coalition of state politicians employed unusual methods to save Roberson’s life, issuing a subpoena for him to testify before a committee next week – a plan, some conceded, which had never been tried before.

Less than two hours before Roberson’s execution, a judge sided with politicians before an appeals panel reversed the decision.

But then the all-Republican court ended a night of uncertainty with its ruling.

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‘I am guilty’

Meanwhile, while one man avoided the death penalty, another willingly underwent lethal injection.

Strapped to a gurney in the Alabama execution chamber, Dearman said to the families of his victims: “Forgive me. This is not for me. This is for you. I’ve taken so much.”

He also told his own family he loved them.

The lethal injection was carried out after Dearman dropped his appeals this year and asked the execution went ahead.

“I am guilty. It’s not fair to the victims or their families to keep prolonging the justice that they so rightly deserve,” he wrote in a letter to the judge in April.

On 20 August 2016, at a home near Citronelle, Alabama, Shannon Randall, 35, Joseph Turner, 26, Robert Lee Brown, 26, Justin Reed, 23, and Chelsea Reed, 22, were all killed.

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All of the victims were related or married and Chelsea Reed, who was married to Justin Reed, was pregnant.

In a statement, Bryant Randall, the father of Chelsea Reed said: “I so long for a final goodbye to my daughter and I would have loved to meet my grandchild.

“I was stripped in many ways of happiness and the bond of family by your [Dearman’s] senseless act.”

The father of Robert Lee Brown said his family will “suffer for the rest of their lives”.

“This don’t bring nothing back. I can’t get my son back or any of them back,” he added.

It was a gamble for Kamala Harris to agree to this interview – Fox News is the place where no Democrat likes to go.

But in an election so unbelievably close, and with less than three weeks to go, she knew it was a gamble she needed to take.

She needs to reach a new audience. There are undecideds out there. They will decide this election.

Many are staunch Republicans who can’t stomach Donald Trump. Fox News is where she will find many of them.

Was it worth it? Did it pay off?

It was combative for sure. The interviewer, veteran Fox host Bret Baier, gave her a hard time; the sort of grilling she has consistently avoided through this campaign.

And at times you could see why. She was not agile in her answers. She was evasive. She did not articulate clear policy that will improve Americans lives. She deflected to Trump.

Immigration was a dominant focus; the chaos that’s worsened on the southern border through her time as vice president.

Harris dodged a direct question on how many undocumented migrants had entered America.

She had no decent answer when asked about the three young women murdered by undocumented migrants over the last few years.

She could have seen this coming- apparently she didn’t.

There were moments where Harris looked like she knew it wasn’t going well. She lost her temper a few times. That reflected discomfort at the questions, but also allowed her to show her spikiness.

She stood up to many of Baier’s tough questions, often deflecting, yes, but with answers as combative as the lines thrown at her.

To the Fox viewer who’s heard she isn’t tough – she might have surprised. Her prosecutorial side came through, and remember, many of Fox News’ audience won’t have seen her perform like this.

However, her defence of her record at the heart of the incumbent administration was tricky for her.

She was rattled and deflected – throwing it back on Trump.

“More than 70% of people think the country is on the wrong track,” Baier put to her.

“Why are they saying that if you are turning the page? You have been in office for three and a half years.”

Picking up on his sentence, Harris said: “And Donald Trump has been running for office since…”

Baier interrupted her: “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

She replied: “What I am talking about is that over the last decade… it is clear to me, and certainly the Republicans who are on stage with me, the former chief of staff to the president Donald Trump, former defence secretaries, national security advisor, and his vice president warn that he is unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous”.

“If that’s the case,” Baier interjected, “why is half the country supporting him? Why is he beating you in a lot of swing states? Why, if he’s as bad as you say, that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States? Why is that happening?”

“This is an election for president of the United States. It’s not supposed to be easy.” Harris replied.

It was hardly a robust response.

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Her unwillingness to distance herself from President Biden partly reflects her lack of agility, but is also partly because she believes admitting faults would be damaging (I don’t think it would at this stage) – as well as the fact that she is proud of core Biden achievements.

Under the Biden-Harris presidency, inflation is down, unemployment is down, crime is down, record legislation has been passed.

That’s the Biden legacy she naturally wants to attach herself to.

Her deflections to Trump exposed insecurity of her own track record but also allowed her to warn of the dangers she sees in Trump.

This was interesting and reflects an urgent shift in strategy by the Democrats.

When she became the candidate, she moved away from Biden’s looped warnings about Trump being a “threat to democracy”. Instead, with her, it was all about “joy” and the future.

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Now, with less than three weeks to go and the polls so tight, she has pivoted back to the core of Biden’s “Trump’s a grave danger” argument.

The net outcome of this interview? Anyone she pulls in from the Fox News demographic is a win for her. She may have pulled some with her tough combative style.

But against that, her answers on immigration and her record as vice president will have cemented some other Fox News waverers to Trump.

My hunch? She didn’t gain from this interview.