In Ohio campaign rally, Trump says there will be a "bloodbath" if he loses November election
Former President Donald Trump claimed that he — not President Biden — will protect Social Security and warned of a "bloodbath" if he loses in November as he campaigned for Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in Ohio over the weekend.
Trump, speaking on a wind-whipped airfield outside of Dayton Saturday, praised his chosen candidate in the race as an "America first champion" and "political outsider who has spent his entire life building up Ohio communities."
"He's going to be a warrior in Washington," Trump said, days after securing enough delegates to clinch the 2024 Republican nomination.
Trump used the stage to deliver a profanity-filled version of his usual rally speech that again painted an apocalyptic picture of the country if Biden wins a second term.
"If I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath. ... It's going to be a bloodbath for the country," he warned, while talking about the impact of offshoring on the country's auto industry and his plan to impose a 100% tariff on foreign-made cars.
Later, Trump said, "If this election isn't won, I'm not sure that you'll ever have another election in this country."
Trump repeatedly noted his difficulty reading from his teleprompters, which could be seen visibly whipping in 35-mile-per-hour wind gusts.
In a statement in response to Trump's "bloodbath" comments Saturday, James Singer, spokesperson for the Biden presidential campaign, said that Trump "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."
When reached by CBS News in an attempt to clarify Trump's "bloodbath" remark, Jason Miller, senior adviser for the Trump campaign, responded that "any reporter that falls for this Biden camp spin is stupid."
In a social media post on Monday, Trump said the media "pretended to be shocked at my use of the word BLOODBATH, even though they fully understood that I was simply referring to imports."
In that full portion of his remarks, he said: "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. And you think you're going to get that, you're going to not hire Americans and you're going to sell the cars us, no. We're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line and you're not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected. Now if I don't get elected, it's gonna be a bloodbath for the whole — that's gonna be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it."
Saturday's rally was hosted by Buckeye Values PAC, a group backing Moreno's Senate candidacy against Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Ohio 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.
Trump also dismissed recent allegations against Moreno, comparing them to attacks he has faced through the years, including his criminal indictments. 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.
"He's getting some very tough Democrat fake treatment right now," Trump said. "And we're not going to stand for it because I know this man. We all know this man. He's a hero, he's a winner. And we're not going to let these people — these people are sick."
The Associated Press reported on Thursday that in 2008, someone with access to Moreno's work email account created a profile on an adult website. The AP could not definitively confirm that it was created by Moreno himself. Moreno's lawyer said a former intern created the account and provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as "part of a juvenile prank."
Questions about the profile have circulated in GOP circles for the past month, sparking frustration among senior Republican operatives about Moreno's potential vulnerability in a general election, according to seven people who are directly familiar with conversations about how to address the matter. They requested anonymity to avoid running afoul of Trump and his allies.
Trump, in his remarks, also accused Mr. Biden of posing a threat to Social Security as he continued to clean up comments from an interview earlier this week in which he appeared to voice openness to cuts.
"Your Social Security is going to be gone," he warned of a Biden second term, even though Biden has pledged to protect and strengthen Social Security as it faces a projected budget shortfall. "You will not be able to have Social Security with this guy in office because he's destroying the economics of our country. And that includes Medicare, by the way, and American seniors are gong to be in big trouble."
"I made a promise that I will always keep Social Security, Medicare. We always will keep it. We never will cut it," he said.
The comments came after Trump, in an interview with CNBC, answered a question about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by saying that, "there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements. There's tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do."
Trump also continued to criticize Biden over his handling of the border, and the migrant crisis. And he laced into Dolan, calling him a "weak RINO" — a Republican in name only — and accused him of "trying to become the next Mitt Romney." He also criticized the Dolan family, which owns Cleveland's baseball team, for changing its name from the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians.
Trump was joined at the rally by Ohio Sen. JD Vance and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who have both stumped with Moreno and are considered potential vice-presidential candidates.