Democrats have accused the Republican of embracing “Hitler’s language” by sharing a clip made by a fan
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.” His 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 the 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
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.”