Donald Trump Doubles Down on His Deranged “Bloodbath” Comments

After spending the weekend in a back-and-forth with Democrats over his alarming “bloodbath” comments, Donald Trump doubled down on the word Monday morning, reiterating the postelection threat in an early morning Truth Social post.

“The Fake News Media, and their Democrat Partners in the destruction of our Nation, pretended to be shocked at my use of the word BLOODBATH, even though they fully understood that I was simply referring to imports allowed by Crooked Joe Biden, which are killing the automobile industry,” Trump wrote. “The United Auto Workers, but not their leadership, fully understand what I mean. With the Electric Car Mandate being pushed by Biden, there soon won’t be any cars made in the USA—UNLESS I’M ELECTED PRESIDENT, IN WHICH CASE AUTO MANUFACTURING WILL THRIVE LIKE NEVER BEFORE!!! MAGA2024”

The soundbite emerged from a dark speech Trump made in Ohio on Saturday, in which he warned he would place high tariffs on automotive imports from China. “If I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath,” Trump warned. “That’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”

The alarming phrase, mixed with the morbid candor of the event, quickly elicited strong reactions from his political opponents.

“It’s clear this guy wants another January 6,” wrote President Joe Biden on his personal account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “But the American people are going to give him another resounding electoral defeat this November.”

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also chimed in, insisting that Democrats “just have to win this election,” since Trump is predicting a bloodbath.

“What does that mean? He’s going to exact a bloodbath?” she said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Trump’s allies—and even Republican critics of the GOP’s presidential nominee—denied the charges, claiming that the viral blurb was taken wildly out of context.

“You could also look at the definition of ‘bloodbath’ and it could be an economic disaster,” Republican Senator Bill Cassidy told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday morning, arguing that the out-of-context coverage would only sow more distrust and hand Trump’s base actual material to attack the press with. “And so if he’s speaking about the auto industry, in particular in Ohio, then you can take it a little bit more [in] context.”

In the same speech, Trump warned that the entire January 6 committee investigating him should be jailed.