Trump shares video featuring image of a hog-tied Biden
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Donald Trump’s (left) promotion of the video reflects the increasingly caustic and personal attacks that he has directed against Mr Joe Biden.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - Former US president Donald Trump posted a video on March 29 to his social media website that features an image of President Joe Biden with his hands and feet tied together.
Trump posted the video to Truth Social in the afternoon with a line that said it was filmed on Long Island on March 28, when Trump attended the wake of a slain New York City police officer in Massapequa Park, New York.
The video shows two moving pick-up trucks decorated with flags and decals supporting Trump. The tailgate of the second vehicle features the image of Mr Biden.
Macabre imagery targeting Trump’s perceived enemies frequently circulates online among right-wing provocateurs and pro-Trump groups, and in some cases has been featured at conservative conferences.
Photos of pick-up trucks featuring similar images of Mr Biden tied up have been shared across social media, and online vendors sell vehicle stickers with the image.
Trump’s promotion of the video featuring the image reflects the increasingly caustic and personal attacks that he has directed against Mr Biden – for example, in a speech in March, he said “everything Joe Biden touches turns to” filth, though he used an expletive – and it extends a record in which the former president features violent imagery on his social media accounts.
A representative for the Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said “that picture was on the back of a pick-up truck that was travelling down the highway”, adding that “Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against president Trump and his family, they are actually weaponising the justice system against him”.
The video was still on Trump’s Truth Social page as at the evening of March 29.
The Trump campaign has repeatedly cited Democratic statements from years past to defend Trump’s rhetoric. Mr Cheung on March 29 pointed to a statement by Mr Biden in 2018 in which he said, referring to Trump: “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”
Mr Biden was responding to comments that Trump had made about women on a tape linked to the show Access Hollywood.
Trump has previously posted doctored photos and videos depicting him physically attacking political opponents, focusing particularly on Mr Biden in the last year.
The former president has, for example, repeatedly shared videos depicting him hitting Mr Biden with golf balls. Trump also posted a photo in 2023 of him holding a baseball bat next to Mr Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who is prosecuting Trump in connection with a hush-money payment made to a porn actress
Trump has also used increasingly authoritarian language on the campaign trail, repeatedly saying migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and describing his political opponents in a Veterans Day speech in 2023 as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out”
In March, Trump said some migrants were “not people” and, amid a discussion of the car industry, that the country would face a “bloodbath” if he lost the election.
A few days later, he attacked Jewish Democrats in a radio interview
