On Saturday afternoon, Donald Trump experienced a precarious moment while operating a teleprompter on a windswept airfield outside Dayton, Ohio.
Although he intended to drum up support for Bernie Moreno's candidacy in the state's upcoming Senate primary on Tuesday, Trump spent much of his time criticizing President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party that defeated him in 2020. I spent a lot of time on that.
As the teleprompter was visibly flapping in the 35 mph winds, President Trump complained, “Don't pay this motherfucker!” Refers to the people who set them up.
As he struggled to understand the speech and adjusted his teleprompter, he joked, “I think Joe Biden put the teleprompter on!”
“Please, don't pay this awful money…I think Joe Biden put the money in.” — President Trump is making a fuss now because he apparently can't read a teleprompter. pic.twitter.com/mX04D42xz3
— Aaron Looper (@atrupar) March 16, 2024
He later said how great it was to “have a president who didn't need a teleprompter,” but his freewheeling speech afterwards was difficult to understand at times.
President Trump has repeatedly made gaffes, including when former President Barack Obama said at a modest rally in Ohio that Joe Biden once defeated Obama in an election. It was unclear what he meant.
President Trump said, “You know what's interesting? Joe Biden beat Barack Hussein Obama, but has anyone ever heard of him? Biden beat Obama in every battleground state.'' But in every other state he was killed.”
While telling the story of the now-famous anti-immigrant “The Snake,” President Trump struggled to pronounce the word “bite.”
If Trump loses, the US will be “bloodshed''
In another part of his speech, President Trump said failure to win in November would be “bloody” for the United States.
“If I don't get elected, it's going to be a disaster. That would be the bare minimum,” Trump said. “It will be a bloodbath for the country.”
It is unclear what exactly the former president meant, but the comment was made as part of a complaint against the country's auto industry. Afterward, he told the audience that if he won, China would no longer be able to sell cars imported to the United States.
Moreno and Trump
President Trump's latest rally comes three days before Tuesday's Republican Senate primary, where Moreno will face off against Sen. Matt Dolan and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
Moreno, a former strong critic of President Trump, is a wealthy businessman from Cleveland who supported Marco Rubio in the 2016 Republican primary. In 2021, NBC reported that Moreno had previously called Trump a “lunatic” and “a lunatic infiltrating the party” in leaked emails.
But in Ohio this weekend, Moreno praised Trump as a “great American” and slammed Republicans who have been critical of Trump.
“I'm tired of Republicans saying, 'I support President Trump's policies, but I don't like this person,'” he said on stage with Trump.
President Trump similarly dismissed Democrats' accusations against Moreno, saying, “He's currently being subjected to very harsh Democratic false treatment, and we're not going to stand for that.”
