VANDALIA, Ohio — Former President Donald Trump claimed he — not President Joe Biden — will protect Social Security and warned of a “bloodbath” if he loses in November while campaigning for Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in Ohio.
Speaking at a windswept airport outside Dayton on Saturday, Trump praised his chosen candidate in the race as an “America First Champion” and “political outsider who has spent his life building communities in Ohio.”
“He’s going to be a warrior in Washington,” Trump said, days after collecting enough delegates to clinch the 2024 Republican nomination.
Moreno faces Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Senator Matt Dolan in the Republican Party’s primaries on Tuesday. LaRose and Moreno have joined the party’s pro-Trump faction, while Dolan is backed by more establishment Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine and former Sen. Rob Portman.
Saturday’s rally was organized by Buckeye Values PAC, a group that supports Moreno’s candidacy. But Trump used the podium to deliver a profanity-filled version of his usual rally speech, which again painted an apocalyptic picture of the country if Biden wins a second term.
“If I am not elected, it will be a bloodbath… It will be a bloodbath for the country,” he warned, talking about the impact of offshoring on the country’s auto industry and his plans to raise tariffs increase the automotive industry. foreign-made cars.
Later, Trump claimed, “If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure there will ever be another election in this country.”
Trump repeatedly noted that he had difficulty reading his teleprompters, which were visibly flapping in 55 mile-per-hour gusts.
Moreno, a former Trump critic who is a wealthy Cleveland businessman, supported Marco Rubio for president during the 2016 Republican primaries, once tweeting that listening to Trump was “like watching a car crash that makes you sick, but you can stop searching. ” In 2021, NBC News reported on an email exchange around the time of Trump’s first presidential election, in which Moreno called Trump a “crazy” and a “maniac.”
On Saturday, however, Moreno praised Trump as a “great American” and railed against those in his party who criticized the former president, who this week became his party’s presumptive nominee for a third straight election.
“I’m so sick of Republicans saying, ‘I support President Trump’s policies, but I don’t like the man,’” he said as he stood on stage with Trump.
Trump also dismissed the recent allegations against Moreno, comparing them to attacks he has faced over the years, including his criminal charges. Trump has been charged in four separate cases involving his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.
“He’s getting very harsh bogus treatment from the Democrats right now,” Trump said. “And we are not going to stand for that.”
The Associated Press reported Thursday that someone with access to Moreno’s work email account had created a profile on an adult website in 2008, looking for “Men for 1-on-1 sex.” The AP could not definitively confirm that it was made by Moreno himself. Moreno’s attorney said a former intern created the account and provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”
Questions about the profile have been circulating in Republican circles over the past month, leading to frustration among senior Republican operatives over Moreno’s potential vulnerability in a general election, according to seven people directly familiar with conversations about how to handle the issue. They requested anonymity to avoid clashing with Trump and his allies.
Trump also accused Biden of posing a threat to Social Security in his comments as he continued to clean up comments from an interview earlier this week in which he appeared open to cuts.
“Your Social Security will be gone,” he warned of a second Biden term, even as Biden has pledged to protect and strengthen Social Security as it faces a projected budget deficit. “With this man in office, you cannot get social security because he is destroying our country’s economy. And that includes Medicare, by the way, and American seniors are going to be in big trouble.”
“I have promised that I will always adhere to Social Security and Medicare. We will always keep it. We will never make it,” he said.
The comments came after Trump, in an interview with CNBC, answered a question about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by saying that “you can do a lot in terms of entitlements, in terms of cuts and also in terms of theft. and the poor management of rights, a hugely poor management of rights. There’s a huge amount of stuff and a huge number of things you can do.”
Trump also continued to criticize Biden for his handling of the border and the migrant crisis. And he attacked Dolan, calling him a “weak RINO” — a Republican in name only — and accusing him of “trying to become the next Mitt Romney.” name from the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians.
Trump was joined at the meeting by Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, both of whom have run afoul of Moreno and are considered potential vice presidential candidates.
Trump’s decision to endorse Moreno was 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 position that the state’s election chief should remain politically neutral. The following month, he fired a trusted aide after old tweets surfaced in which the aide criticized Trump.
The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face third-term Sen. Sherrod Brown, considered one of the country’s most vulnerable Democrats, in November.
Brown, first elected in 2006 and unchallenged in his primary this year, has managed to keep his seat even as the state has shifted to the right. In his most recent re-election in 2018, he defeated then-Rep. Jim Renacci with 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 can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP