AFP
KEY POINTS
- Whitman said it was “B.S.” that Trump sent a call to his supporters “to have a reprise of Jan. 6”
- Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance said Trump was talking about a “bloodbath” in the auto industry
- The callout comes following the launch of a multi-million-dollar anti-Trump campaign by a Republican PAC
Ex-president Donald Trump on Saturday said there will be a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win the November 2024 election, gaining major criticism not just from Democrats but also from within his party.
“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 guys if I get elected. Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” the business mogul said during a Saturday rally in Ohio.
Democrats immediately scrambled to slam the former president’s comments, but a former Republican governor, New Jersey’s Christine Todd, joined the fray, saying it was “appalling” that an ex-president would utter such words.
“That is B.S. on that. He was definitely sending a call to his supporters to have a reprise of Jan. 6 … when he says bloodbath, that means more of the weapons that we saw on Jan. 6, and it’s appalling,” she said at MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” with Jonathan Capehart. “He’s being pretty clear about what he wants to do should he get back in power, and I think it would be shame on us if we ignore this,” she added.
“[For] an ex-president of the U.S. to say that and follow it up with that’ll be the end of elections as we know them, I mean he’s been pretty clear about what he wants to do” @GovCTW reacts to Trump saying there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/vCfAzNd0Nn
— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) March 17, 2024
Other Republicans rebutted media coverage of Trump’s statements, saying he was taken out of context. Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance said Trump “said that a bloodbath would happen to the American auto industry if [Joe] Biden kept on promoting Chinese made EVs.”
Donald Trump said that a bloodbath would happen to the American auto industry if Biden kept on promoting Chinese made EVs.
He of course is 100 percent correct.
All other reporting about his “bloodbath” comment is complete propaganda. The media should be ashamed.
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) March 17, 2024
Trump has been accused, alongside six unnamed co-conspirators, of plotting to upend the 2020 election. He is also said to have incited violence. His supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, resulting in the deaths of five people.
Whitman’s callout of Trump comes days after a Republican PAC launched a $50 million anti-Trump campaign to urge American voters to vote against the business magnate. They said that while voters who supported Trump in 2016 and 2020 had various reasons to turn away from him in November, “they all agree on one thing: he must never hold office again.”
