Trump slams Republican critics

 

US President Donald Trump has hit out at "stupid" critics from within his own party after growing Republican warnings of a "bloodbath" in the November 3 election.

Trump called for unity on Sunday within Republican ranks as he and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden hit the ground in crucial swing states in the final stretch, with opinion polls showing the US president is at serious risk of losing.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska was the latest to join a growing chorus of criticism and warnings of November “Bloodbath”.

“I’m now looking at the possibility of a Republican bloodbath in the Senate, and that’s why I’ve never been on the Trump train,” Sasse said.

The Republican Senator said Trump “kisses dictators’ butts [and] mocks evangelicals behind closed doors”, and “flirts with (far-right) white supremacists.”

“Trump’s family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity,” Sasse said in a town hall with constituents on Wednesday.

He also said Trump's leadership through the COVID-19 pandemic has not been "reasonable, or responsible, or right."

Other Republicans, including Trump's frequent golfing partner Senator Lindsey Graham, expressed worries that Trump could lose, and the electoral losses could cost them not only the White House but their majority in the Senate.

Earlier this month, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also expressed concerns that the Republican Party could face a “bloodbath” on Election Day.

Cruz said the 2020 presidential election in November would either be "very positive" or "terrible" for the party, likening its proportions to “a bloodbath of Watergate proportions.”

Speaking to a rally in the western state of Nevada on Sunday, Trump said, "We have some stupid people."

"We have this guy Sasse, you know, wants to make a statement... The Republicans have to stick together better," Trump said at the rally in Carson City, Nevada's capital.

Before the rally, Trump issued a familiar stream of insults on Twitter, calling Ben Sasse “little”, “the least effective of our 53 Republican senators”, “rather stupid and obnoxious” and “an embarrassment to the great state of Nebraska”.

Trump is criss-crossing the US in a 11th-hour campaigning amid the surging COVID-19 pandemic, hopping on Sunday from Nevada to California and then back to Nevada for a day of rallies and fundraising, before moving on to Arizona on Monday.

‘Trump incentivizing domestic terrorism’

Ahead of Trump's Nevada events, his Democratic challenger Joe Biden said the president "needs to answer for his failed response to COVID-19."

Trump is trailing Biden in public opinion polls, with some analysts saying he should focus on America's economic prospects, which Trump considers his strong point.

Nearly 220,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and the outbreak is now spreading in many states at rates unseen in months.

Trump has dismissed his weak polling data, while Biden's supporters are also wary about inflated national polling numbers and over-confidence in an election that could tilt on a close race in a single state such as Florida.

Democrats slammed Trump on Sunday not just for his attacks on Biden but also on Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the recent target of a kidnapping plot by a heavily armed right-wing militia group.

The president is "incentivizing and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism. It is wrong. It's got to end. It is dangerous," Whitmer said.