Recently, the mainstream media took comments from former President Donald Trump out of context when he suggested that the U.S. auto manufacturing would undergo an economic bloodbath if Joe Biden were reelected later this year.
When speaking about the potential loss of domestic manufacturing jobs to international outsourcing, Trump said verbatim that if he doesn’t win the election, “it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” Following this comment, the mainstream media and the Biden campaign immediately jumped on the opportunity to suggest Trump was propagating political violence.
Reporters at a White House press briefing questioned spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre on the matter, where Peter Doocy called out that Biden had used the term “bloodbath” in the past as well. KJP was asked if Biden’s use of the word differed from Trump’s.
One reporter asked, “The former president used that terminology a week or two ago when talking about it again today, what’s the White House reaction to the use of that term bloodbath?” KJP responded with a carefully crafted, vague answer claiming that political violence must be denounced.
“I’m gonna be really mindful here, because it is a President though. Obviously, the former president is also a candidate here. So want to follow the law and with the Hatch Act, but we have to denounce our responses. We have to denounce any any violent rhetoric that we hear, certainly from our leaders, right, that tears our country apart, it could tear our country apart, and puts our fellow Americans in harm’s way in danger. So we have to denounce that. And look, you know, I think and we think that the American people wants to see the country coming together. That’s what they want. They want to they want to make sure that we respect our democracy,” KJP responded.
However, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy chimed in, bringing up an instance in which Joe Biden had used the word “bloodbath,” inquiring if that would receive equal condemnation. “Just a quick point of clarification Karine. So when Donald Trump is talking about a bloodbath, it is violent rhetoric. What was it when Joe Biden said in 2020, we, what we can’t let happen is let this primary become a negative bloodbath,” Doocy questioned.
KJP emphasized that the comments in question must be read “in context.” She stated, “So I’m going to be really mindful and careful about Donald Trump. But if you read because he is, a he is a candidate, we’re talking about the 2024 election, you should read what he said in its context. So you got to read what he said in context,” KJP responded. Watch the back-and-forth with Doocy below:
The press secretary doubled down on this assertion, “He was talking about a group of people, a group of people. That’s what he’s talking about. What the President was talking about during the primary was not to allow it to be the words and the primary and that election to become negative two different two different things. They’re not the same.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot of the embedded video.
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