Trump campaign says ‘bloodbath’ warning for US taken out of context by Biden, media
- Donald Trump on Saturday warned of a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the November election
- Trump campaign says the remark referred to Chinese threats to the US auto industry
Former US president Donald Trump’s declaration that if his second attempt at securing a second term in the White House fails then it will result in a “bloodbath” was taken entirely out of context by the President Joe Biden’s team and the media, according to his campaign.
Trump was speaking from an airfield in Dayton, Ohio on Saturday during a rally in support of Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, when the former president seemed to suggest another electoral loss would lead to widespread violence in the United States.
“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 said.
Biden’s campaign was quick to call out the 45th president’s rhetoric, declaring Trump’s statements a further piece of evidence that his public cosying up to authoritarians like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is not just politics as usual, but a sign of his own authoritarian leanings.
“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-Harris spokesperson James Singer said in a statement.
Trump’s weekend comments risk a repeat of the days leading up to his exit from the White House in 2021, Singer said.