Former President Donald Trump shared a video on Truth Social Monday afternoon referencing “the creation of a unified Reich” among possible headlines that would read if he wins re-election in November. Trump deleted the video sometime around 8:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday after receiving stark criticism.
Trump’s account posted the 30-second video on Monday where a narrator asks “What happens after Donald Trump wins?” The video goes on to show various newspaper headlines after the theoretical win, including “Border is closed, 15 million illegal aliens deported.” Another headline shown twice in the video seemed to mention a “Reich,” the Germanic word for a realm or empire, but is often considered a reference to the Third Reich regime of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The Biden campaign quickly jumped on the reference, causing Trump’s campaign to backtrack.
“America, stop scrolling and pay attention. Donald Trump is not playing games; he is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a ‘unified reich,’” said Biden-Harris 2024 spokesperson James Singer in a statement Monday “Parroting ‘Mein Kampf’ while you warn of a bloodbath if you lose is the type of unhinged behavior you get from a guy who knows that democracy continues to reject his extreme vision of chaos, division, and violence.”
The original link to the video now displays “This resource could not be found.” However, someone captured the post on the Wayback Machine, and others have reposted it on X.
A Trump 2024 campaign spokesperson dismissed the allegation and said the former president was not aware of the word that appeared in the video.
“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,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement to NBC.
NBC reports that the text from the Truth Social video appears to be pulled from the Wikipedia page for World War I. The sentence, “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich,” appears on the web page.
Trump’s online rhetoric has served as signals to his followers in the past. After several social media posts surrounding the January 6 insurrection in 2021, Trump was removed from Twitter and Facebook. Later that year, he started Truth Social to create a new platform for his speech. Now, Truth Social is a publicly traded company that Trump is the largest shareholder of.
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