It is scary how easily a lie can be deliberately pushed as the truth these days. During a campaign rally in Ohio on Saturday, Trump warned of potential economic collapse for the U.S. motor industry if he is not re-elected, opening the door for China come in and fill the void.
"If you’re listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends — but he understands the way I deal," Trump began. "Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now … you’re going to not hire Americans and you’re going to sell the cars to us, no. 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 cars if I get elected."
Trump continued, "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."
His remarks were quickly twisted by the Biden campaign, congressional Democrats, and the mainstream media. They seized on his words, portraying them as a pledge of chaos if he doesn't win in November.
Biden-Harris campaign statement on Trump tonight promising a “bloodbath” if he loses pic.twitter.com/8mBYh4QKnf
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) March 17, 2024
Nancy Pelosi simultaneously floats the "bloodbath" hoax (never happened), the "praising Hitler" hoax (never happened), and the "losers" hoax (never happened) pic.twitter.com/yOB3uMyk92
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 17, 2024
We are witnessing the invention of the "bloodbath" hoax in real-time
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 17, 2024
Unfortunately for them, we have 𝕏
Media narrative: Full context: pic.twitter.com/jaYDvtGomn
If you were shocked by how egregious the media was in its efforts to mislead the public about what Trump said, you shouldn't be. This isn't the last fake news story that will be pushed before November. The lie that Trump praised white supremacists after the infamous Charlottesville protests in 2017 is still pushed today, and Biden often cites the fake story as the reason why he ran for president in 2020.
But, election year fake stories aimed at tarnishing Trump's image are a specialty for the media.
In the fall of 2020, the New York Times published a story with the headline that Trump only paid $750 in taxes in 2017. Although the story gained huge traction in the media, it was entirely misleading. The story itself acknowledged that Trump had prepaid millions in taxes in 2016 and 2017, and the $750 line-item was a result of complex tax codes, but the false narrative is what spread like wildfire.
The same goes for two other stories that year. In June, the New York Times claimed, without evidence, that a Russian military unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan, including American troops, and that President Trump allegedly knew about this in March but took no action. Despite being debunked by military and intelligence sources, the story was widely circulated without suppression on social media
Similarly, The Atlantic recently published a story claiming that in 2018, Donald Trump didn’t want to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris because the troops there who died in battle were “losers” and “suckers.” Over a dozen witnesses disputed this claim, but it never stopped the media or Joe Biden from pretending that it was true.
Related: Five Fake Stories Social Media Didn’t Suppress or Censor
This is the media that we're up against this year. This fake story about Trump and the bloodbath is only the beginning. It's going to get a lot worse. They will do everything possible to smear him. The "bloodbath" hoax is just the warmup.
