Trump campaign deletes ‘unified reich’ video amid White House ire

WASHINGTON - Donald Trump’s social media account on May 21 removed a video showing fake headlines about a “unified reich” if he wins the 2024 presidential election, as the White House strongly condemned the post.

Trump’s campaign blamed an inattentive staff member for reposting the 30-second clip, which flashed a series of fictitious news stories painting a picture of American prosperity, with one including the term normally associated with Nazi Germany.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris lashed out at the video, saying it was “appalling”.

“This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president, and it is appalling. And we’ve got to tell him who we are,” Ms Harris said in a speech to union members in Philadelphia.

“Once again it shows that our freedom and our very democracy are at stake.”

The White House said it was “abhorrent, sickening and disgraceful for anyone to promote content associated with Germany’s Nazi government under Adolf Hitler”.

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden was expected to comment on the video later on May 21 during a campaign trip to Boston.

The video was posted on the afternoon of May 20 and was removed around 19 hours later.

“What happens after Donald Trump wins? What’s next for America?“ a voice-over asks in the clip as the hypothetical headlines are shown.

Amid headlines including “Economy booms!” and “Border is closed”, one mentions “the creation of a unified reich”.

No direct reference to Nazis is made in the clip, but the word “reich” is commonly used in reference to the Third Reich of Nazi Germany.

Other references in the video, which appeared to have multiple copy-and-pasted chunks of text to fill out the “newspaper” background, mention World War I. The “unified reich” headline appears to reference the 1871 unification of Germany.

‘Rule as a dictator’

In a statement, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the post had no official backing and that the “reich” reference was unintentional.

“This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staff member who clearly did not see the word,” she said.

Trump did not respond to shouted questions about the video as he attended his historic criminal hush money trial in New York.

The post comes as Trump has repeatedly sought to portray Mr Biden as failing to curb anti-Semitism in the United States during a period of rising tensions fuelled by the war in Gaza.

But Trump himself has repeatedly used rhetoric that carries clear echoes of Nazi ideology, including describing domestic opponents as “vermin” and immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the United States.

While president, Trump in 2017 described some neo-Nazi marchers during violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia – who had chanted “Jews will not replace us” – as “very fine people”, and he has dined with white nationalists at his Florida estate.

Trump has a “long history” of anti-Semitic behaviour, the Biden campaign said.

“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’,” spokesperson James Singer said.

Later, the Biden campaign asked “why the hell was it posted in the first place?” and “why did it take so long to take it down?”. AFP