Influencer Editorial Team
Former US President Donald Trump deleted a controversial video from his Truth Social account after it sparked severe backlash. The video, posted during a lunch break from his Manhattan hush money trial on Monday afternoon, featured references to a “unified Reich” among hypothetical news headlines that could result from a Trump election win in November. These headlines included triumphant messages like “Trump wins!!” and “Economy booms!” but also included references to World War I. The term “Reich” is commonly associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, although in the video, it seemed to allude to the formation of a modern pan-German nation.
The video appeared at a time when Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was attempting to depict President Joe Biden as lenient on antisemitism. This effort was overshadowed by Trump’s own repeated use of language and rhetoric evocative of Nazi Germany. On Tuesday morning, the video was deleted from Trump’s account. Karoline Leavitt, the campaign press secretary, stated, “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.”
Earlier this month, Trump referred to Biden’s administration as a “Gestapo administration” during a fundraiser, a reference to the secret Nazi police force. Trump has a history of using rhetoric similar to Adolf Hitler’s, such as claiming that immigrants entering the US illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country” and calling his opponents “vermin.” He has also faced criticism for dining with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist in 2022 and for downplaying the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us!”
The contentious video included at least one headline that was lifted 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.” Additionally, the video featured headlines such as “Border Is Closed” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported,” paired with smaller text detailing the start and end dates of World War I. The video was created by a meme maker known as Ramble_Rants, who has previously collaborated with the Trump campaign, according to The New York Times. Ramble_Rants defended the video in a post on X (formerly Twitter), claiming it was intended to depict “American peace and prosperity” and explained that the historical newspaper clippings were pre-selected as part of a template from the stock video company Envato Elements.
