Former President Donald Trump became subject to a media firestorm over the weekend after pledging to implement a 100% tariff on Chinese-made cars to protect American manufacturing, otherwise there would be a “bloodbath.”
Despite the media outrage, even Democrats agreed with Trump’s broader point: that Washington needs to take action to protect American workers.
“The more aggressive we can be, in my opinion, the better,” said Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan to Politico, employing a martial adjective to illustrate a point about economic matters. Fellow Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell echoed Trump and Stevens’ calls to get tough on China, telling Politico, “I really, really, really, really, really am going to be intense about ensuring that automobiles made by China aren’t going to get any benefit from trade agreements that we’ve got.” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) accused China of partaking in “government-backed cheating.”
Trump made the “bloodbath” comments at a rally in Ohio over the weekend supporting Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, his pick to take on Brown in Ohio’s pivotal Senate race this fall. Trump’s support for tariffs has been a key aspect of his policy platform since he first ran for president in 2015 and likely contributed to his upset victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin on his way to defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016.
While Trump was clearly using vivid language to illustrate his point about the economic consequences of sending President Joe Biden back to the White House for a second term, numerous media outlets elected to interpret Trump’s comments as a call for violence.
The Daily Signal compiled some of the more outlandish takes on Trump’s use of the word “bloodbath,” a word that numerous outlets used just within the last fortnight to describe Trump’s wholesale changes at the Republican National Committee.
MSNBC talking head Jen Psaki, Biden’s former press secretary, accused Trump of doubling “down on his threats of political violence.” Her MSNBC colleague Joe Scarborough called anyone who didn’t believe Trump was calling for violence “idiots.” Former Vice President Mike Pence, no Trump ally, dismissed the tendentious interpretations during an interview on ABC, saying, “The president was clearly talking about the impact of imports devastating the American automotive industry.”
