Trump campaign explains ‘unified Reich’ video
Former US President Donald Trump has been accused by his Democratic opponents of flirting with Nazi language, after his social media account shared a fan video that mentioned a “unified Reich.” The Trump campaign has said it was a mistake.
The user ‘ramble_rants’ on X (formerly Twitter) appears to have first shared the video online on Monday. The clip claims to show how conditions in America would improve should Trump win the presidential election in November.
The video includes made-up newspaper headlines, which appear to use text borrowed from Wikipedia. One of them reads: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich,” repeating verbatim a passage from an article about World War I.
Trump’s account on the platform Truth Social shared the 30-second clip the same afternoon. A backlash soon followed from his political opponents, who interpreted the word ‘Reich’ (‘empire’ in German) as a reference to the Nazi Third Reich.
What happens after Trump wins? pic.twitter.com/it8rXywtzf
— Ramble_Rants (@ramble_rants) May 20, 2024
US President Joe Biden brought up the post during a pair of fundraisers in Boston on Tuesday, claiming that it fits a pattern of incendiary rhetoric by Trump. His campaign later released a video response, in which the Democrat apparently watches the clip on his phone before saying: “This is Hitler’s language, not America’s.”
Vice President Kamala Harris reacted in a similar fashion during a rally in Philadelphia earlier in the day. The clip, she said, “highlighted language from Nazi Germany.” She added that “this kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president and it is appalling.”
The Biden-Harris campaign has long attempted to draw comparisons between Trump and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Some of the backlash also came from Republicans. The Trump campaign deleted the clip and distanced itself from its content.
“This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word, while the President was in court,” campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Trump has also made accusations that his opponent has dictatorial impulses. Earlier this month, he claimed that Biden is running a “Gestapo administration,” referring to the Nazi secret police.
