Former President Donald Trump said he — and not President Joe Biden — will be the one to protect Social Security and warned of a “bloodbath” if he loses in November while campaigning for Senate candidate Bernie Moreno in Ohio.
Trump, speaking Saturday at a wind-whipped airport outside Dayton, praised his chosen candidate in the race as a “first American champion” and a “political outsider who has spent his entire life building Ohio communities.”
“He will be a warrior in Washington,” Trump said, days after securing enough delegates to clinch the 2024 Republican nomination.
Moreno will face Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state Sen. Matt Dolan in Tuesday’s GOP primary. LaRose and Moreno have aligned themselves with the party’s pro-Trump faction, while Dolan is supported by more establishment Republicans, including Gov. Mike DeWine and former Sen. Rob Portman.
Saturday’s rally was hosted by Buckeye Values PAC, a group that supports Moreno’s candidacy. But Trump used the stage to deliver a profanity-filled version of his usual rally speech, which once again painted an apocalyptic picture of the country if Biden wins a second term.
“If I’m not elected, it will be a bloodbath… It will be a bloodbath for the country,” he warned of the impact of offshoring on the country’s auto industry and his plans to raise tariffs on petroleum products. foreign-made cars.
Later, Trump stated that: “If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure there will ever be another election in this country.”
Trump repeatedly noted his difficulty reading from his teleprompters, which could be seen visibly whipping in 35 mph wind gusts.
Moreno, a wealthy Cleveland businessman and one-time Trump critic, supported Marco Rubio for president in the 2016 Republican primaries, and once tweeted that listening to Trump was “like watching a car crash make you sick bad, but you can stop watching.” ” In 2021, NBC News reported on an email exchange around the time of Trump’s first presidential run in which Moreno referred to Trump as a “madman” and a “maniac.”
On Saturday, however, Moreno praised Trump as a “great American” and lashed out at those in his party who have criticized the former president, who this week became his party’s presumptive nominee for a third consecutive election.
“I’m so sick of Republicans saying, ‘I support President Trump’s policies but I don’t like this man,’” he said as he joined Trump on stage.
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 ranging from his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“He’s getting very harsh fake Democratic treatment right now,” Trump said. “And we won’t stand for it.”
The Associated Press reported Thursday that in 2008, someone with access to Moreno’s work email account created a profile on an adult website searching for “Men for 1-on-1 sex.” The AP could not definitively confirm that it was created 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 circulated in Republican circles over the past month, sparking frustration among top Republican officials about Moreno’s potential vulnerability in the general election, according to seven people directly familiar with conversations about how to address the issue. They requested anonymity to avoid clashing with Trump and his allies.
Trump, in his remarks, also accused Biden of posing a threat to Social Security as he continued to clean up comments from an interview earlier this week in which he appeared to express openness to cuts.
“Your Social Security is going to go away,” he warned of a second Biden term, even as Biden pledged to protect and strengthen Social Security as he faces a projected budget deficit. “You won’t be able to have Social Security with this guy in office because he’s destroying our country’s economy. And that includes Medicare, by the way, and older Americans are going to be in big trouble.”
“I made a promise that I will always keep Social Security, Medicare. We will always keep it. We will never cut it,” he said.
The comments came after Trump, in an interview with CNBC, responded to a question about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by saying that “there’s a lot that can be done in terms of entitlements, in terms of cuts and also in terms of theft”. and the mismanagement of rights, tremendous mismanagement of rights. There are a huge amount of things 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 lashed out at Dolan, calling him a “weak RINO”—Republican in name only—and accusing him of “trying to be the next Mitt Romney.” He also criticized the Dolan family, owners of the Cleveland baseball team, for changing its name from the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians.
Trump was joined at the rally by Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, both of whom have rattled Moreno and are considered potential vice presidential candidates.
Trump’s decision to support Moreno marked a blow to LaRose, who had taken several steps to gain his favor. Just days after entering the Senate race, LaRose endorsed Trump for president, reversing an earlier position that the state elections chief should remain politically neutral. The following month, he fired a longtime, 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, considered among the nation’s most vulnerable Democrats, in November.
Brown, first elected in 2006 and unopposed in this year’s primary, managed to hold on to his seat even as the state shifted to the right. In his last re-election 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.