Former Trump White House spokesperson Sarah Matthews said the former president incited a deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and does not deserve the benefit of the doubt for his ‘bloodbath’ comments.
At a rally in Ohio last weekend, Trump told his supporters that there will be a “bloodbath” for the United States if he doesn’t win in November.
Trump’s critics pointed to his reaction to his loss in the 2020 presidential election, which included inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol, to say his comment was a call to violence to his supporters if he loses in November.
However, the Trump campaign pushed back arguing that he meant that there would be an “economic bloodbath for the auto industry and autoworkers.”
But, Matthews rejected the Trump campaign’s explanation, citing the former president’s history of violent rhetoric.
“Trump oftentimes speaks in these kinds of incoherent, vague sentences, and so that allows people to draw to the conclusion that they want to, to fit their own narrative,” Matthews told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, according to a clip shared by Mediaite.
“When you’re looking at who the messenger was of this message, this is a man who helped incite a deadly insurrection on our nation’s Capitol,” she added. “So when he’s using terms like bloodbath, it’s really hard for me to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
