The 45th president was referring to the broader U.S. economy and the auto industry with the term, his campaign said.
Former President Donald Trump warned during an Ohio speech that there will be an economic “bloodbath” if he isn’t reelected while campaigning for a Republican Senate candidate, while his campaign said that a number of news outlets misled the public by taking the term out of context.
In the speech, President Trump said that the Chinese communist regime is “building a couple of massive plants where they’re gonna build the cars in Mexico, and they think that they’re gonna sell those cars into the United States, with no tax at the border.”
“If you’re listening, President Xi,” he told the crowd, “… those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re going to get that, you’re going to 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 single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys if I get elected.”
The former president then warned about the potential economic consequences if he doesn’t win in 2024. “Now, 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,” he said.
He then went back to speaking about how China will not be able to sell any cars in the United States if he’s reelected.
After the “bloodbath” comment, media outlets including NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, NPR, the Guardian, and Yahoo, failed to mention that he was speaking within the context the auto industry in the United States. Some, like Politico, even stated that it “was unclear what the former president meant.”
Some Democratic politicians, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), also claimed his comments will spark another breach of the U.S. Capitol.
The Biden campaign seized on his remarks in Ohio on Saturday. “This is who Donald Trump is: a loser who gets beat by over 7 million votes and then instead of appealing to a wider mainstream audience doubles down on his threats of political violence,” Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said in a statement to news outlets.
However, Republicans pointed out that the word was taken out of context and that legacy news outlets were misleading the public.
