Joe Biden ratcheted up the fear factor on Tuesday, telling CBS News that he's afraid that if Trump loses the election, there will be violence in the streets.
"If Trump loses, I'm not confident at all," Biden responded when asked if he believed there would be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump doesn't win the election.
“He means it, all the stuff about if we lose there’ll be a bloodbath,” Biden said. “You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Trump said in March that there would be a "bloodbath" for the auto industry if he loses in November. Taking the comment out of context turned out to be a convenient attack line for Democrats.
Donald Trump has always had a loose, undisciplined tongue, which is a major handicap for any politician. The transcript and the facts do not support the idea that Trump was predicting post-election violence if he lost.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) didn't understand what the uproar was about.
“You could also look at the definition of bloodbath and it could be an economic disaster,” he said Sunday morning. “And so if he’s speaking about the auto industry, in particular in Ohio, then you can take it a little bit more context.”
But Cassidy acknowledged that Trump's attempts to make his opponent's head explode by utilizing rhetoric that is constantly on the edge of propriety backfires occasionally.
“The general tone of the speech is why many Americans continue to wonder, ‘Should President Trump be president?’ That kind of rhetoric, it’s always on the edge, maybe doesn’t cross, maybe does depending upon your perspective,” he said.
With the media, they are in constant "pounce" mode when it comes to Trump.
“I also think though that the mainstream media contributes to it,” Cassidy told host Kristen Welker. “If you take the one about the bloodbath, which arguably could be about an economic bloodbath not about kind of street violence related to the election, then it gives his defenders something to focus on as something which was distorted.”
If I were Robert Costa, the reporter interviewing Biden, I would have followed up on that question about a "bloodbath" by asking Biden if he would accept the results of the election. No one ever asks the Democrat.
If anyone bothered to ask Biden, they might be surprised at the answer. Biden is preparing the ground for election challenges if Democrats lose.
"Look what they're trying to do now in the local election districts where people count the votes," Biden said, "or putting people in place in states that they're going to count the votes, right?"
Yes, the votes will be counted. They will be counted by both Democratic and Republican observers just like they were in 2020 when a Democrat won. Throwing sand in the faces of the voters trying to raise doubts about the legitimacy of the vote count this far out from election day should worry anyone who cares about fair elections.
Trump has never been charged in a court of law for "inciting violence" on January 6, 2021. For Democrats and the media to continue to raise the specter of Jan. 6 when portraying the post-election climate in America would be ludicrous if the media didn't take it so seriously.