A video posted on Donald Trump’s social media account on Monday included references to a “unified reich” among hypothetical news headlines celebrating a possible election win by Trump in November.
The video was sharply criticized by President Biden, who accused Trump of using “Hitler’s language.”. Here’s what Joe Biden Posted on ‘X’ –
Donald Trump posted an ad echoing the language of Nazi Germany.
He only cares about holding on to power.
I care about you. pic.twitter.com/XSmGKaQhJ1
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 21, 2024
The video featured headlines like “Trump wins!!” and “Economy booms!” along with references to World War I.
The term “reich”..
is often linked to Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, but in this video, it seemed to refer to the unification of Germany in 1871 into a single empire or “reich.”
The 30-second video appeared on Trump’s account while he was on a lunch break from his Manhattan “hush money” trial and was removed the next morning. Campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the video was not created by the campaign but was reposted by a staffer who missed the “reich” reference. The campaign later clarified that it was posted by a “junior staffer.”
The White House condemned the video, with Senior Deputy Communications Director Andrew Bates calling it “abhorrent, sickening, and disgraceful.” He emphasized that promoting content related to Nazi Germany is dangerous and offensive.
During a campaign event in Boston on Tuesday, President Biden criticized the post, highlighting Trump’s use of language associated with Hitler. Earlier this month, Trump referred to the Biden administration as a “Gestapo administration” and has previously made comments echoing Hitler, such as saying immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and calling his opponents “vermin.”
Trump has faced backlash for dining with Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes in 2022 and for downplaying the 2017 Charlottesville rally where white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us!”
One of the video’s headlines was copied verbatim from a Wikipedia entry on World War I: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified reich.” Another image showed headlines like “Border Is Closed” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported” above text with the start and end dates of World War I.