Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) criticized the 'absurd criticism' of former President Trump, who is receiving backlash for calling some undocumented immigrants 'not people' and issuing a warning of a 'bloodbath' if he is not reelected in November.
“And now you have this absurd criticism of Donald Trump coming out, like we were all there, we heard exactly what he said,” Vance said Sunday during an interview with “Fox and Friends.”
Trump’s comments occurred last Saturday at a rally in Dayton, Ohio for Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who is in a close primary race against state Sen. Matt Dolan and Secretary of State Frank LaRose this week.
“I don’t know if you call them people,” Trump said at the rally. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”
The former president later argued the U.S. will face serious issues if President Biden is reelected.
“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,” Trump said during a discussion of his proposal for steep tariffs on vehicle imports.
Vance, who also attended the rally, on Sunday sought to clarify and reinforce Trump’s remarks on Sunday.
“He was saying that if you allow the Chinese to run the EV industry, which is what Biden’s policies are promoting, you’re going to destroy the industry in this country. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the auto-industry. He’s 100 percent correct about that,” Vance said.
The Ohio Republican, a strong supporter of Trump, criticized the media’s coverage of Trump’s remarks.
“And again, I think it shows how low the media is willing to go to cover for Joe Biden. They know that they cannot win this election, if it’s about Joe Biden’s record, the border policies, the inflation and so forth,” he said. “So, they’re just going to lie about it for the next eight months, which is why it’s so important that we have real journalists, why we have X.com, why we push back against this craziness because I think if the American people know the truth, they’ll vote for Bernie Moreno, they’ll vote for Donald Trump and we’ll have a great election in 2024.
X owner Elon Musk similarly called out what he called “legacy media lies,” in reference to the media coverage of Trump’s remarks.
The Hill reached out to the White House for comment.
Trump’s latest remarks are reminiscent of those he’s made in the past, dating back to the launch of his 2016 campaign when he accused Mexico of sending rapists and criminals across the border into the U.S. Late last year, Trump argued immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the country, drawing comparisons to Nazi leaders.
