Is Donald Trump that clever, or are the media still just that unprepared? Whatever the reason, he continues to be just as adept as ever at running circles around the press and public.

One of his most effective tools is what we might call the Trump Two-Step, in which the former president says something outrageous, backs away from it in the face of criticism, and then fully embraces it. The goal here is to create a veneer of deniability. It doesn’t even need to be plausible; it just needs to muddy the waters a bit.

That pattern is clear in his recent invocations of a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win the 2024 presidential election. During a March 16 speech in Ohio, Trump blasted President Joe Biden’s push for electric vehicles. (Trump is angry that the United Auto Workers endorsed Biden, who walked on a picket line with striking employees, rather than Trump, who held a rally at a nonunion shop.) It’s difficult to capture the full context of Trump’s remarks because he meanders so much, but he was speaking about the auto industry when he warned about a “bloodbath.” …

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