Former President Donald Trump's Truth Social account shared a video Monday that referred to a "unified Reich" as being among possible developments if he were to win re-election in November, drawing criticism from President Joe Biden and his campaign.
Trump's account posted a 30-second video to his Truth Social platform Monday afternoon that asked "what happens after Donald Trump wins?" and "what's next for America?" The video was also posted to his Instagram account.
The background is made up of hypothetical newspaper front pages with headlines including "BORDER IS CLOSED — 15 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS DEPORTED" and "ECONOMY BOOMS." Twice in the clip, slightly blurred text appears beneath the headlines that reads: "Industrial strength significantly increased ... driven by the creation of a unified Reich."
The post was deleted from Truth Social on Tuesday morning. It was also removed from Trump's Instagram account.
"Reich," meaning "realm," "kingdom" or "empire," is often considered to be a reference to Hitler's Third Reich regime, which emerged in 1930s Nazi Germany — and its inclusion in the video was condemned by Biden.
"Is this on his official account? Wow!" Biden said Tuesday in a video of his own. "A 'unified Reich?' That's Hitler's language, that's not America's. He cares about holding on to power. I care about you."
Biden made similar remarks Tuesday at a campaign event in Boston.
James Singer, a spokesman for Biden’s re-election campaign, said in a statement that Trump’s post “is part of a pattern of his praise for dictators and echoing antisemitic tropes. He’s a threat to our democracy and Americans must reject him and stand up for our democracy this November.”
Trump’s campaign dismissed the allegation and said Trump — who is on trial in New York — was not aware the word 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, the Trump campaign's spokeswoman, said in a statement.
"The real extremist is Joe Biden who has turned his back on Israel and the Jewish people by bowing down to radical anti-semites and terrorist sympathizers in his party like Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," she added.
At a separate campaign event Tuesday, Biden dismissed the Trump campaign's explanation.
"We got some lame excuse that a staffer did it. And we already know Trump personally controls his social media account, because he brags so much about control," Biden said.
While Hitler did discuss creating an enlarged German empire in his autobiographical manifesto, "Mein Kampf," the text from the video shared on Truth Social appears to have been taken from the Wikipedia page for World War I.
The site reads: “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich.”
The unification of Germany in 1871 brought together an assortment of German-speaking kingdoms and duchies that had been left independent the Holy Roman Empire collapsed in 1806.
Another sentence in the video reads: "First World War (often abbreviated as WW1 or WWI) Causes of World War I."
Trump has used 20th century German historical comparisons to attack his opponents: He compared the Biden administration this month to the Gestapo, Nazi Germany's secret police force.
Late last year, he said immigrants were "poisoning the blood" of America, echoing parts of "Mein Kampf," but he said he was unaware that Hitler had used similar language and denied the comments were racist.
