By now everyone has heard that former President Donald Trump threatened U.S. democracy or something by predicting a “bloodbath” if he didn’t win re-election in November. Trump didn’t actually do that, as we know: His “bloodbath” comment, delivered at a campaign rally in Ohio, referred to tariffs on Chinese electric cars potentially being made in Mexico, as a brief perusal of what Trump actually said at the rally in Ohio will confirm. But that didn’t stop PBS NewsHour co-anchor Amna Nawaz from stating Monday evening: “A look at former President Donald Trump’s violent language on the campaign trail.”
PBS thought the fake “bloodbath” worthy of two segments, both taking Trump far out of context, just like the Biden campaign wanted. Co-anchor Geoff Bennett launched his own segment thusly:
Former President Donald Trump is under fire again for comments made during a controversial speech at a campaign event for a Republican Ohio Senate candidate. Extremism experts say it's the latest example of Donald Trump using violent rhetoric to appeal to his supporters.
Bennett, who worked the Monday-Friday evening shift, wasn’t available to comment on Trump’s remarks on Saturday evening, which was for the best, as the truth of what Trump said slowly seeped into the mainstream press coverage, so that by Monday night Bennett was obliged to hedge, at least in comparison to the insanity on the networks’ newscasts. But even in playing Trump's comments in full context, Bennett still clung to narrative:
BENNETT: As his use of the word bloodbath during an extended riff on the auto industry and Chinese automakers sparked fresh controversy and criticism.
TRUMP: We're going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line. And you're not going to be able to sell those cars -- if I get elected. Now, 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. That will be the least of it.
BENNETT: In a social media post today, Mr. Trump said his threat had been taken out of context and turned the defense of his comments into a fund-raising appeal. Former President Trump also facing criticism for his dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric at that same rally.
TRUMP: If I had prisons that were teeming with MS-13 and all sorts of people that they have got to take care of for the next 50 years, right, young people, they're in jail for years and, if you call them people. I don't know if you call them people. In some cases, they're not people, in my opinion.
Does Bennett really want to defend the humanity of murderous MS-13 gang members?
Bennett even used a professor’s comment that admitted Trump was using a metaphor into a danger.
BRENDAN NYHAN (Dartmouth College): In this case, it may have been a metaphor. It's hard to tell, with him. He was using that language in the context of a discussion of the auto industry, but his meaning was ambiguous. Given the way he so frequently calls for or endorses violence, I think it's appropriate to be concerned when he invokes it even in a seemingly metaphorical way.
It's with noting that PBS’s own reporter Paul Solman referred to “a bloodbath for the economy” in a May 2020 story on the collapse of U.S. retail due to COVID edicts.
PBS NewsHour co-anchor Amna Nawaz piled on during the “Politics Monday” segment that followed, taking another tack: Republicans who defend Trump’s statement are as awful as Trump himself.
She spoke to Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report, and was even more aggressive than her co-host Bennett.
NAWAZ: So, you saw Geoff's report earlier on that violent rhetoric we're hearing from former President Trump. Even after Mr. Trump is confronted about the fact that some of his language echoes, the language of Hitler, in an interview, he doubles down. This weekend, he said there would be a bloodbath if he didn't win….Speaker Mike Johnson said that Mr. Trump was just referring to the auto industry, and that he's 100 percent correct and Americans agree with him. The decision by fellow Republicans to not unequivocally call out violent rhetoric, what does that say to you?
These grossly misleading anti-Trump segments were brought to you in part by BDO.
