Sarah Matthews, an ex-staffer of former President Trump, said his recent warning of a “blood bath” for the U.S. if he doesn’t win in November follows a “proven track record” of “unhinged comments.”
“[I]t does follow a proven track record of these kinds of unhinged comments from him, and an increasingly violent rhetoric, and apocalyptic rhetoric, almost.” Matthews said Monday in an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”
“When he says things like ‘There’s gonna be death and destruction’ if he’s charged in these criminal cases, that is, I think, a warning call to his supporters,” she told host Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary.
Matthews, who resigned from her position on Jan. 6, 2021, in the aftermath of the Capitol attack, signaled the former president’s words could be seen as “marching orders” to his supporters.
“We saw this happen in the lead-up from the election in 2020 to Jan. 6, where he told them to come to the Capitol, he said it was going to be a wild day that we needed to save our country,” Matthews said of her former boss.
“So, he’s putting these kinds of messages out there, hoping that they’ll act on them,” she added.
Trump’s remarks came Saturday during a campaign rally in Ohio supporting GOP Senate candidate Bernie Moreno. During the event, the former president warned China against trying to open factories in Mexico to sell cars to the U.S.
“No, 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 cars if I get elected,” Trump said, adding “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the country.”
“That’ll be the least of it,” he continued. “But they’re not going to sell those cars, they’re building massive factories.”
The comments resulted in backlash from figures including President Biden — who launched a campaign ad around the remarks — and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“What does that mean? He’s going to exact a blood bath?” Pelosi said on CNN. “There’s something wrong here.”
“How respectful I am of the American people and their goodness — but how much more do they have to see from him to understand that this isn’t what our country is about?” she added.
The former president and his allies pushed back against the scrutiny by saying he was talking about the auto industry.
“The Fake News Media, and their Democrat Partners in the destruction of our Nation, pretended to be shocked at my use of the word BLOODBATH, even though they fully understood that I was simply referring to imports allowed by Crooked Joe Biden, which are killing the automobile industry,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.