Trump's latest outburst makes him unfit to be a 'dog catcher': conservative

Former President Donald Trump doesn't deserve any devil's advocate interpretation of his comments that America would see a "bloodbath" if he loses the election, conservative former Naval War College professor Tom Nichols told CNN Wednesday.

Faced with backlash for the comments he made at a rally last weekend, Trump has tried to backpedal and claim he meant it metaphorically — not that he was threatening another insurrection or violent political unrest if he loses.

But that doesn't really hold water, Nichols said.

"Let me start with bloodbath," said anchor Jim Acosta. "I mean, we don't have to re-litigate everything, but on Saturday he did say, for the country, I mean, he did say that, there's no denying that. Why do you think he is now saying 'slaughtered socially,' whatever that means?"

"First of all, he has not earned any benefit of the doubt about what his words mean, considering that he uses terms like 'vermin' and other incendiary terms," said Nichols, a longtime critic of the former president.

"But the other thing is that whenever he's trapped and backed up against the wall, he just doubles down and he doubles down in two ways. And you heard them both here. One is everybody does it, I'm no worse than anybody else. We all talk about bloodbath. It was a bloodbath at the grocery store. So bloodbath at the gas station? No, no one really talks that way."

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The other way he doubles down, added Nichols, is that he tries to redefine what he actually said in a contradictory way that doesn't make any sense.

Here, for instance, Nichols said, Trump is saying, "'Well, I only meant economically and socially.' I'm sorry, but if you're a presidential candidate talking about a social bloodbath, these are things that in a more rational time would have ruled him out of contention for dog catcher, much less president."

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Tom Nichols on Trump's "bloodbath" commentswww.youtube.com