Donald Trump has sparked a liberal media meltdown after warning that there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the election in a fiery speech where he also branded migrants ‘animals.’
The former president painted an apocalyptic vision of the country if Biden wins a second term while speaking at an airfield rally outside of Dayton, Ohio, Saturday to campaign for Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno.
‘If I don´t get elected, it´s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that´s going to be the least of it. It´s going to be a bloodbath for the country,’ Trump, 77, warned.
On the subject of immigration and the murder of Laken Riley allegedly at the hands of an undocumented migrant, Trump also described criminal migrants as ‘animals’ – in the latest sign that his campaign rhetoric has become increasingly inflammatory.
Critics including Nancy Pelosi and a retired FBI boss blasted the incendiary ‘bloodbath’ comment as ‘a threat’ – while MAGA supporters said it had been taken out of context by the press because it came in reference to a clampdown on foreign car imports.
Donald Trump has sparked a liberal media meltdown after warning that there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the election in a fiery speech where he also branded migrants ‘animals’
Nancy Pelosi was among those to raise concerns about Trump’s ‘bloodbath’ rhetoric
‘Mexico has taken over a period of 30 years, 34 percent of the automobile manufacturing business in our country,’ Trump said at the Dayton rally.
‘China now is building a couple of massive plants where they’re going to build the cars in Mexico, and they think that they’re going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border.
‘Let me tell you something to China. If you’re listening President Xi, and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal.
‘Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, if you think you’re going to get that and not hire Americans and you’re going to sell the cars to us – no – we’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every car that comes across the line.
‘If I don´t get elected, it´s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that´s going to be the least of it. It´s going to be a bloodbath for the country.’
Headlines quickly seized on the ‘bloodbath’ comment, which Trump supporters said was unfair to use without context -involving the outsourcing of the auto industry that the GOP expects to continue if Biden stays in the White House – and prompted Elon Musk to blast the reports as ‘legacy media lies.’
The outcry over his comments quickly poured onto Musk’s X platform, formerly known as Twitter, as users branded Trump as ‘hateful’ ‘grotesque’ and ‘a dangerous lunatic’ over both his ‘bloodbath’ comment and reference to migrants as ‘animals’.
Retired FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi was among those who raised concerns.
‘Trump says if he’s not elected ‘It will be a blood bath for the country’,’ Figliuzzi wrote on X.
‘FYI, if he IS elected, it will also be a blood bath based on his intentions. The choice is as clear as the threat.’
The outcry over his comments quickly poured onto Musk’s X platform, formerly known as Twitter , as users branded Trump as ‘hateful’ ‘grotesque’ and ‘a dangerous lunatic’ over both his ‘bloodbath’ comment and reference to migrants as ‘animals’
Former house speaker Nancy Pelosi also weighed in.
‘We just have to win the election, because he’s even predicting a ‘bloodbath’,’ she told CNN. ‘What does that mean? He’s going to exact a bloodbath? There’s something wrong here.
‘How respectful I am of the American people and their goodness, but how much more do they have to see from him to understand that this isn’t what our country is about?’
‘This is so dangerous,’ UCL professor Brian Klaas wrote while reposting the clip from Trump’s speech on X.
‘Everyone who cares about democracy, rule of law, the Constitution, or the avoidance of death should call this out, denounce it, make clear this is unacceptable.
‘It is a grotesque indictment of our system that this man could still win the presidency.’
Others said Trump was ‘threatening violence once again’ after the Capitol riot of January 6.
Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer also accused Trump of doubling ‘down on his threats of political violence.’
‘He wants another January 6, but the American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge,’ Singer charged in a statement.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the former president had clearly been talking about the impact of a second Biden term on the auto industry and broader economy.
‘Crooked Joe Biden and his campaign are engaging in deceptively, out-of-context editing,’ he said.
Critics including Nancy Pelosi (pictured) and a retired FBI boss blasted the incendiary ‘bloodbath’ comment as a ‘threat’ – while MAGA supporters said it had been taken out of context because it came in reference to a clampdown on foreign car imports
Cleveland businessman and Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno gestures to the crowd at a campaign rally ahead of remarks from Trump
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Vandalia, Ohio
Trump speaks to a crowd at a Buckeye Values PAC rally on March 16
Trump also doubled down on his increasingly radical campaign rhetoric in reference to the immigration crisis, after he described migrants as ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ in December.
‘Among my very first actions upon taking office will be to stop the invasion of our country and to send Joe Biden’s illegal aliens back home,’ he said.
‘These are the roughest people you’ve ever seen. And now we have a new form of crime. I call it Biden migrant crime, but it’s too long so let’s just call it migrant crime.’
‘Throughout the world right now, crime is way way down, you know why? Because they sent us their criminals, that’s why,’ he added.
‘Venezuela is down 66 percent because they sent us their gang members and their gangsters. They sent us their drug dealers and their murderers, they’re all coming into our country.
‘All over the world, crime is down, because they’ve sent them to the United States of America because we have a stupid president that allows this to happen. Stupid.’
‘I would do the same thing if I had prisons teeming with MS-13 and all sorts of people that they’ve got to take care of for the next 50 years – young people, if you can call them people, I don’t know if you can call them people,’ he went on.
‘In some cases they’re not people in my opinion, but I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.
‘They’ll say ‘you’ll have to vote against him because did you hear what he said about humanity?’ I’ve seen the humanity, and these are bad – these are animals, ok.’
Trump also referred to criminal migrants as ‘snakes’ and claimed that ‘what’s happening to our country’ with the influx ‘has not happened before’.
He claimed that ‘no one has been hurt by Joe Biden’s migrant invasion more than our great African American and Hispanic American communities’ along with people on social security because ‘they’re taking our jobs’.
‘With his open border policy Joe Biden has repeatedly stabbed African American people in the back including by granting millions and millions of work permits taking their jobs,’ Trump said.
‘The African American community, the Hispanic community are going to be the ones who suffer the most, and you know who else? Unions. Those unions are going to go out of business.’
Supporters react as Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally
Trump gestures to the crowd before speaking during the Ohio rally
Just under an hour into the speech, Trump also appeared to confuse former president Barack Obama with an opponent of Biden’s in the 2020 race.
‘Joe Biden won against Barack Hussain Obama, has anyone ever heard of him?’ Trump told the crowd.
‘Every swing state Biden beat Obama, but every other state he got killed. You think that’s an honest election?’
Turning back to the subject of the rally, Trump said Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno is ‘going to be a warrior in Washington’.
Moreno faces Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan in Tuesday’s GOP primary.
LaRose and Moreno have aligned themselves with the pro-Trump faction of the party, while Dolan is backed by more establishment Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine and former Sen. Rob Portman.
Saturday’s rally was hosted by Buckeye Values PAC, a group backing Moreno´s candidacy.
A one-time Trump critic, Moreno, a wealthy Cleveland businessman, supported Marco Rubio for president in the 2016 Republican primary, and once tweeted that listening to Trump was ‘like watching a car accident that makes you sick, but you can stop looking.’
In 2021, NBC News reported on an email exchange around the time of Trump´s first presidential run in which Moreno referred to Trump as a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘maniac.’
On Saturday, however, Moreno praised Trump as a ‘great American’ and railed against those in his party who have been critical of the former president, who this week became his party’s presumptive nominee for a third straight election.
‘I am so sick and tired of Republicans that say, `I support President Trump´s policies but I don´t like the man,´’ he said as he joined Trump on stage.
Trump also dismissed recent allegations against Moreno, comparing them to attacks he has faced through the years, including his criminal indictments.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump, left, embraces South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem at a campaign rally on March 16
Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Vandalia, Ohio
Trump has been charged in four separate cases that span his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
His decision to back Moreno marked a major blow to LaRose, who had taken a number of steps to win his favor.
Just days after entering the Senate race, LaRose endorsed Trump for president – reversing an earlier stance that the state´s elections chief should remain politically neutral.
The next month, he fired a long-time trusted aide after old tweets surfaced in which the staffer criticized Trump.
The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face third-term Sen. Sherrod Brown, viewed as among the nation´s most vulnerable Democrats, in November.
Brown, first elected in 2006 and uncontested in his primary this year, has managed to hold onto his seat even as the state has shifted to the right.
In his most recent reelection in 2018, he defeated then-Rep. Jim Renacci by almost 7 percentage points. Two years later, Ohio voted for then-President Trump by 8 points.