Another day, another Trump speech controversy: Remember the "grab 'em by the pussy" comments Donald Trump made in the early '00s that came out during the 2016 presidential race? Or his "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters" comment from the same campaign? Those soundbites loom large in people's imaginations, but they weren't especially vague; they required no distortion to be unflattering to the man who said them.
Now, though, each new Trump comment seems like a Rorschach. His "bloodbath" comment in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday is no exception, but perhaps indicative of how this campaign cycle is going to go.
Pearls were clutched up and down the Acela corridor: "Trump says country faces 'bloodbath' if Biden wins in November," was how Politico chose to headline Trump's remark. "Trump says some migrants are 'not people' and predicts a 'blood bath' if he loses," was how The New York Times characterized the speech. And don't even get me started on what various MSNBC commentators said. (OK, here's one: "He was sending a call to his supporters to have a reprise of January 6," said former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who then compared Trump to Adolf Hitler.)
Here's what Trump actually said: "Let me tell you something, to China, if you're listening, President Xi…those big, monster car manufacturing plants that you're building in Mexico right now, and you think you're going to get that, you're going to not hire Americans and you're going to sell the cars to us? 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 guys if I get elected. Now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole— That's gonna be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That'll be the least of it. But they're not going to sell those cars, they're building massive factories."
The "that'll be the least of it" part sure is weird, but to totally remove the context—Trump was talking about tariffs and car manufacturing and loss of jobs—from the "bloodbath" comments strikes me as media malpractice. (More competent pundits might take the opportunity to point out how slapping big tariffs on foreign-manufactured cars would be bad policy, a point made repeatedly by Reason's Eric Boehm.)
Later, Trump said, "If this election isn't won, I'm not sure that you'll ever have another election in this country," which strikes me (and others) as the more concerning soundbite than the one the media is seizing on. And he referred to illegal immigrants as "animals" in his speech, which doesn't tell us anything new about what Trump believes, but sure isn't aligned with what I value.
Still: The media chose not to focus on these chunks of the speech or on the actual trade policy Trump was promoting. Many mainstream publications did not even provide viewers and readers with full context so they could judge the comments themselves. This strikes me as a problem—one that's been pointed out repeatedly over the last eight years—requiring some self-reflection that may unfortunately never come.
Fighting at Al Shifa: In Gaza, fighting has once again broken out at Al Shifa hospital, where the Israeli military says Hamas fighters are shooting from.
Back in November, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) decision to raid Al Shifa was controversial. Isreal said the hospital was being used as a Hamas command center and a means of covering the entrances to the terrorists' underground tunnel network. (The November raid uncovered stockpiles of weapons hidden in MRI rooms as well as tunnel entrances on the grounds.)
The IDF is calling the new raid a "high-precision" operation, saying it is based on new intelligence that indicates senior Hamas militants are hiding out at the hospital. Still, it's a high-risk operation with lots of potential to harm civilians—and some evidence that's already happened.
"The hospital and the surrounding area house about 30,000 patients, medical workers and displaced civilians, and a number of people were killed and wounded, the [Hamas-controlled Gazan] health ministry said," reports The New York Times. "It added that a fire had broken out at the gate of the complex, which caused some people to suffocate and made it difficult to reach those who were injured."
Scenes from New York: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is ordering a review of how the state has been issuing cannabis dispensary licenses, having already called the legal weed rollout "a disaster." (I have a Reason documentary in the works about this precise issue.)
QUICK HITS
- "Who are currently the most influential thinkers/intellectuals on the Left?" asks Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution.
- Check out this Bloomberg explainer on the end of Japan's negative interest rates.
- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) wants the government to establish a 32-hour workweek; National Review editors tearing the idea apart.
- High-end space dining is now a thing (if you're willing to fork over half a million).
- "The Kremlin stage-managed Russia's presidential vote over the weekend to send a singular message at home and abroad: that President Vladimir V. Putin's support is overwhelming and unshakable, despite or even because of his war against Ukraine," reports The New York Times' Paul Sonne.
- lol:
Two of the last four movies I've seen in the theater were set in 1989. Another was set in 1999. Another took place 10,000 years after the Butlerian Jihad. What I'm saying here is: Screenwriters *really* don't like it when characters have access to cellphones.
— Jesse Walker (@notjessewalker) March 18, 2024
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