VANDALIA, Ohio – Former President Donald Trump claimed that he — no longer President Joe Biden — will offer protection to Social Security and warned of a “bloodbath” if he loses in November as he campaigned for Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in Ohio.
Trump, talking on a wind-whipped airfield out of doors of Dayton Saturday, praised his selected candidate in the race as an “America first champion” and “political outsider who has spent his entire life building up Ohio communities.”
“He’s going to be a warrior in Washington,” Trump said, days after securing enough delegates to clinch the 2024 Republican nomination.
Moreno faces Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan in Tuesday’s GOP primary. LaRose and Moreno have aligned themselves with the pro-Trump faction of the party, while Dolan is backed by more establishment Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine and former Sen. Rob Portman.
Saturday’s rally was hosted by Buckeye Values PAC, a group backing Moreno’s candidacy. But Trump used the stage to deliver a profanity-filled version of his usual rally speech that again painted an apocalyptic picture of the country if Biden wins a second term.
“If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath … It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” he warned whilst speaking in regards to the affect of offshoring at the nation’s auto trade and his plans to extend price lists on foreign-made vehicles.
Later, Trump claimed that, “If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country.”
Trump repeatedly noted his difficulty reading from his teleprompters, which could be seen visibly whipping in 35-mile-per-hour wind gusts.
A one-time Trump critic, Moreno, a wealthy Cleveland businessman, supported Marco Rubio for president in the 2016 Republican primary, and once tweeted that listening to Trump was “like watching a car accident that makes you sick, but you can stop looking.” In 2021, NBC News reported on an electronic mail alternate across the time of Trump’s first presidential run in which Moreno referred to Trump as a “lunatic” and a “maniac.”
On Saturday, on the other hand, Moreno praised Trump as a “great American” and railed towards the ones in his celebration who’ve been vital of the previous president, who this week become his celebration’s presumptive nominee for a 3rd immediately election.
“I am so sick and tired of Republicans that say, ‘I support President Trump’s policies but I don’t like the man,’” he said as he joined Trump on stage.
Trump also dismissed recent allegations against Moreno, comparing them to attacks he has faced through the years, including his criminal indictments. Trump has been charged in four separate cases that span his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“He’s getting some very tough Democrat fake treatment right now,” Trump mentioned. “And we’re not going to stand for it.”
The Associated Press reported on Thursday that in 2008, someone with access to Moreno’s work email account created a profile on an adult website seeking “Men for 1-on-1 sex.” The AP may just no longer definitively ascertain that it used to be created by way of Moreno himself. Moreno’s legal professional mentioned a former intern created the account and equipped a remark from the intern, Dan Ricci, who mentioned he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”
Questions in regards to the profile have circulated in GOP circles for the previous month, sparking frustration amongst senior Republican operatives about Moreno’s possible vulnerability in a basic election, consistent with seven people who find themselves at once acquainted with conversations about easy methods to cope with the subject. They asked anonymity to keep away from working afoul of Trump and his allies.
Trump, in his remarks, additionally accused Biden of posing a risk to Social Security as he persisted to scrub up feedback from an interview previous this week in which he gave the impression to voice openness to cuts.
“Your Social Security is going to be gone,” he warned of a Biden 2nd time period, although Biden has pledged to give protection to and toughen Social Security because it faces a projected funds shortfall. “You will not be able to have Social Security with this guy in office because he’s destroying the economics of our country. And that includes Medicare, by the way, and American seniors are gong to be in big trouble.”
“I made a promise that I will always keep Social Security, Medicare. We always will keep it. We never will cut it,” he mentioned.
The feedback got here after Trump, in an interview with CNBC, spoke back a query about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by way of announcing that, “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements. There’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do.”
Trump also continued to criticize Biden over his handling of the border and the migrant crisis. And he laced into Dolan, calling him a “weak RINO” — a Republican in title handiest — and accused him of “looking to change into the following Mitt Romney.” He also criticized the Dolan family, which owns Cleveland’s baseball team, for changing its name from the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians.
Trump was joined at the rally by Ohio Sen. JD Vance and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who have both stumped with Moreno and are considered potential vice-presidential candidates.
Trump’s decision to back Moreno marked a major blow to LaRose, who had taken a number of steps to win his favor. Just days after entering the Senate race, LaRose endorsed Trump for president — reversing an earlier stance that the state’s elections chief should remain politically neutral. The next month, he fired a long-time trusted aide after old tweets surfaced in which the staffer criticized Trump.
The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face third-term Sen. Sherrod Brown, viewed as among the nation’s most vulnerable Democrats, in November.
Brown, first elected in 2006 and uncontested in his primary this year, has managed to hold onto his seat even as the state has shifted to the right. In his most recent reelection in 2018, he defeated then-Rep. Jim Renacci by almost 7 percentage points. Two years later, Ohio voted for then-President Trump by 8 points.
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Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Brian Slodysko contributed to this report.
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Meg Kinnard may also be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP
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