Trump warns of potential ‘bloodbath’ if Biden wins
VANDALIA, Ohio — Former President Donald Trump claimed that he — not President Joe 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.
Mr. Trump, speaking outside of Dayton on 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,” Mr. Trump said, days after securing enough delegates to clinch the 2024 Republican nomination.
Mr. Moreno faces Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan in Tuesday’s GOP primary. Mr. LaRose and Mr. Moreno have aligned themselves with the pro-Trump faction of the party, while Mr. Dolan is backed by more establishment Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine and former Sen. Rob Portman.
The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face third-term Sen. Sherrod Brown, viewed as among the nation’s most vulnerable Democrats, in November.
Saturday’s rally was hosted by Buckeye Values PAC, a group backing Mr. Moreno’s candidacy. But Mr. 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 Mr. 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 plans to increase tariffs on foreign-made cars.
Later, Mr. Trump claimed that, “If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country.”
Mr. Moreno, a wealthy Cleveland businessman, supported Marco Rubio for president in the 2016 Republican primary. In 2021, NBC News reported on an email exchange around the time of Mr. Trump’s first presidential run in which Mr. Moreno referred to Mr. Trump as a “lunatic” and a “maniac.”
On Saturday, however, Mr.
Moreno praised Mr. Trump as a “great American” and railed against those in his party who have been critical of the former president.
“I am so sick and tired of Republicans that say, ‘I support President Trump’s policies but I don’t like the man,’ ” he said as he joined Mr. Trump onstage.
Mr. Trump also dismissed recent allegations against Mr. Moreno, comparing them to attacks he has faced through the years, including his criminal indictments.
“He’s getting some very tough Democrat fake treatment right now,” Mr. Trump said. “And we’re not going to stand for it.”
The Associated Press reported on Thursday that in 2008, someone with access to Mr. Moreno’s work email account created a profile on an adult website seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex.” The AP could not definitively confirm that it was created by Mr. Moreno himself. Mr. 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.”
Mr. 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 Mr. 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 Mr. 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.”