US election: Donald Trump says some migrants are ‘not people’ and predicts ‘blood bath’ if he loses

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a Buckeye Values PAC Rally in Dayton, Ohio on March 16, 2024. Photo / Maddie McGarvey, The New York Times

Former President Donald Trump, at a weekend event ostensibly meant to boost his preferred candidate in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary race, gave a freewheeling speech in which he used dehumanising language to describe immigrants, maintained a steady stream of insults and vulgarities and predicted that the United States would never have another election if he did not win in November.

With his general-election matchup against President Joe Biden in clear view, Trump once more doubled down on the doomsday vision of the country that has animated his third presidential campaign and energised his base during the Republican primary.

The dark view resurfaced throughout his speech. While discussing the US economy and its auto industry, Trump promised to place tariffs on cars manufactured abroad if he won in November. He added: “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country.”

For nearly 90 minutes outside the Dayton International Airport in Vandalia, Ohio, Trump delivered a discursive speech, replete with attacks and caustic rhetoric. He noted several times that he was having difficulty reading the teleprompter.

The former president opened his speech by praising the people serving sentences in connection with the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Trump, who faces criminal charges tied to his efforts to overturn his election loss, called them “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots”, commended their spirit and vowed to help them if elected in November. He also repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, which have been discredited by a mountain of evidence.

If he did not win this year’s presidential election, Trump said, “I don’t think you’re going to have another election, or certainly not an election that’s meaningful.”

Trump also stoked fears about the influx of migrants coming into the United States at the southern border. As he did during his successful campaign in 2016, Trump used incendiary and dehumanising language to cast many migrants as threats to US citizens.

Trump supporters at the Dayton rally. Photo / Maddie McGarvey, The New York Times

He asserted, without evidence, that other countries were emptying their prisons of “young people” and sending them across the border. “I don’t know if you call them ‘people,’ in some cases,” he said. “They’re not people, in my opinion.” He later referred to them as “animals”.

Border officials, including some who worked in the Trump administration, have said that most migrants who cross the border are members of vulnerable families fleeing violence and poverty, and available data does not support the idea that migrants are spurring increases in crime.

Trump mentioned Bernie Moreno, his preferred Senate candidate in Ohio and a former car dealer from Cleveland, only sparingly. Though he has Trump’s endorsement, Moreno, whose super political action committee hosted Saturday’s event, has struggled to separate himself in a heated Republican primary contest. Trump was redirected from a planned trip to Arizona to appear with Moreno as a last-minute push.

Trump issued vulgar and derogatory remarks about a number of Democrats, including ones he often targets, like Biden and Fani Willis, the Atlanta prosecutor overseeing his criminal case in Georgia, as well as those widely viewed as prospective future presidential candidates, such as Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois.

Trump called Biden a “stupid president” several times and at one point referred to him as a “dumb son of a — " before trailing off. He also compared Willis’ first name to a vulgarity, called Newsom “Gavin New-scum” and took jabs at Pritzker’s physical appearance.

The Biden campaign issued a statement after the event claiming that Trump’s comments doubled “down on 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,” said James Singer, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign.

Campaign merchandise for sale in Dayton, Ohio. Photo / Maddie McGarvey, The New York Times

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, clarified that Trump was talking about the auto industry and the economy, not political violence, and wrote in a statement that “Crooked Joe Biden and his campaign are engaging in deceptively, out-of-context editing.”

Trump’s sharp words were not reserved for national politicians: he briefly took aim at one of Moreno’s primary opponents, Matt Dolan, a wealthy Ohio state senator who has been surging in recent polls. Returning to his prepared remarks, Trump said he did not know Dolan but depicted him as “trying to become the next Mitt Romney”.

“My attitude is anybody who changes the name from the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians should not be a senator,” Trump said, referring to the professional baseball team that Dolan’s family holds a majority stake in.

Trump’s campaign speeches generally swing between scripted remarks and seemingly off-the-cuff digressions. On Saturday, he acknowledged struggling to read the teleprompter as he tried to quote statistics on inflation.

“Everything is up: chicken’s up, bread is up and I can’t read this damn teleprompter,” Trump said. “This sucker is moving around. It’s like reading a moving flag in a 35 mile-an-hour wind.”

Then, Trump, who before his presidency was known in New York for refusing to pay his bills to a wide range of service providers, joked about not paying the teleprompter company.

“Then they say Trump’s a bad guy, because I’ll say this: Don’t pay the teleprompter company,” he said as the crowd laughed. “Don’t pay.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Anjali Huynh and Michael Gold

Photographs by: Maddie McGarvey

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