Joe Biden increased tariffs on E.V.s made in China from 25% to 100%, ostensibly to reduce the number of E.V.s sold in order to protect E.V.s produced in the U.S.  Was this Biden’s “bloodbath” moment?

Former president Donald Trump, during a March 16 speech in Vandalia, Ohio, while talking about the auto industry, said, “Big, monster car manufacturing plants that you’re [China] 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?  No.  We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars.  If I get elected.  Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the whole [industry].  That’s going to be the least of it.  It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”

The MSM went wild.  Major news outlets, including the New York Times, ABC, and the Associated Press, wrote that Trump warned of a “bloodbath” in headlines that didn’t include the auto industry context.

However, the media expressed no concerns when Joe Biden did exactly the same thing.  Here is a typical response from CNN: “The Biden administration is set to unveil a sweeping restructuring of former President Donald Trump’s trademark tariffs on Chinese imports.”  Another response: “The tariffs are designed to protect the US auto industry from an invasion of low-priced, good-quality EVs made in China, where the costs of labor, raw materials and components are vastly lower than in the United States.”

The Biden campaign also went wild, wasting no time creating a response.  The campaign created an ad on the following Monday that excoriated Trump’s “bloodbath” remarks with a montage of what it called Trump’s past incendiary rhetoric.  The ad began with the “bloodbath” clip (with no context, of course), then cut to a scene from Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 (again, no context).  The ad ended with Trump saying, “It’s going to be a bloodbath,” with “STOP TRUMP” superimposed over him speaking.

About the remark, Biden campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika attempted to add her own context: “The Trump campaign can try to spin all they want, but the context is clear: their candidate has spent every moment since his first campaign encouraging and excusing political violence.  Repeatedly.  It’s not a bug; it’s a feature of Donald Trump’s extremism.  We take Trump at his word — and voters will, too.”

Bottom line: We’re witnessing a double-standard that focuses upon what a disfavored candidate says rather than what he does.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.