Former president Donald Trump, who opened his 2016 campaign declaring undocumented immigrants “rapists,” took the dehumanization even further this weekend, saying some immigrants are “not people … these are animals.”
“I don’t know if you call them people. In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion,” Trump said at an Ohio rally on Saturday. “But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”
“These are bad — these are animals,” he added. “And we have to stop it.”
Trump made the remarks at a campaign rally for Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, a Colombian immigrant, who demanded those who come to the country learn English and incorrectly claimed English is the national language. Ohio Sen. JD Vance and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem were also in attendance and are both on the rumored short-list to be Trump’s runningmate.
“We don’t need to vote in five different languages. We learn the language,” Moreno, who called Trump a “lunatic invading the party” in 2016, said during his remarks. “It means you assimilate. You become part of America; America doesn’t become part of you.”
Trump also promised a “bloodbath” if he loses. He made the comment while vowing to raise tariffs on cars made outside the U.S.
“Now 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 guys — if I get elected,” he said. “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.”
In an email to The Washington Post, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said that the comments were in reference to imported vehicles, not violence.
“If you actually watch and listen to the section, he was talking about the auto industry and tariffs,” Cheung wrote. “Biden’s policies will create an economic bloodbath for the auto industry and autoworkers,” he added.
Responding to Trump’s bloodbath comment, Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said in a statement, “This is who Donald Trump is: a loser who gets beat by over 7 million votes and then instead of appealing to a wider mainstream audience doubles down on his threats of political violence. He wants another January 6, but the American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence, and his thirst for revenge.”
