Former Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta told Newsmax on Monday that when former President Donald Trump makes comments like his taken-out-context "bloodbath" remark over the weekend, he forces the media to cover issues that it wouldn't if left to its own devices.
"Media does not want to cover this," Acosta said, referring to the state of the economy, during an appearance on "Newsline." "But the president forces media to cover it every time he goes out, and he gives a speech. People are going to focus in on the issues and they're going to have to focus on the issues because they're real and people are feeling it, and people need to insist that the media covers it. And if the media doesn't cover it, then they need to switch channels to some media that does."
At a rally in Ohio on Saturday, Trump spoke about the dangers facing the U.S. auto industry from imports, calling it a "bloodbath." Mainstream media outlets took the former president's remark and ran with it, publishing reports with misleading headlines that claimed Trump was promising a bloodbath if he isn't returned to the White House in November. He blasted Democrats and the mainstream media on Monday for taking his comment out of context and fearmongering.
Acosta said the "bloodbath comment" was clearly taken out of context "and everyone knows it."
"The real issues here are the economy, inflation, jobs," he said. "Anyone that goes to the grocery store knows how expensive it is to feed a family. The cost of food is now the highest, as a percentage of someone's budget, the highest it's been since the Carter years. More and more people are struggling just to buy food to feed their families. Jobs, good jobs, are becoming hard to come by."
"President Biden talks about how all these jobs have been created under his presidency," he continued. "The jobs that have been created are jobs that came back because COVID was over. And if you look at the new jobs, more than half the new jobs are in two sectors of the economy. Government is hiring everywhere. That's not creating new jobs. That's just spending money and borrowing money so the government can hire people. The other one is healthcare and healthcare isn't getting better. People aren't getting healthier. It's the bureaucracy that is hiring within the health care sector — that is not growing the American economy."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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