Trump Campaign Deletes ‘unified Reich’ Post After Widespread Backlash
Donald Trump’s campaign deleted a video shared on his Truth Social account that included the phrase “unified reich” amid blowback from the Biden administration and a handful of Republicans.
On Monday afternoon, Trump’s Truth Social account posted a 30-second video that described a vision of America if he wins in 2024, and included fake newspaper headlines that said “Trump Wins!” and “What’s next for America?” At first glance, the video seemed like typical campaign media — except that the background included text about “the creation of a unified reich,” and “German industrial strength.”
The phrase “the creation of a unified reich,” which appeared multiple times in the background, drew heavy criticism. The German term “reich” means empire but is often associated with Nazi Germany.
The Trump campaign said that the video was reposted by an unwitting staffer on Monday afternoon, although the video remained on the former president’s social media account overnight.
“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, a campaign spokesperson, said in a statement. “The real extremist is Joe Biden.”
The video was met with immediate condemnation by both the Biden campaign and Republicans on Capitol Hill, including some of Trump’s staunchest allies like Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.).
“I don’t know why you would say such a thing,” said Graham, who told POLITICO that the staffer who posted the video "should be dealt with.”
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) also called out the video, saying, "to use that term in this day and age is simply inappropriate, and it's got to be corrected."
Asked to address the controversy, President Joe Biden, who spent Tuesday campaigning in New Hampshire, said his response to it would be “too long,” according to pool reports. Vice President Kamala Harris did address it saying that, "extremists are trying to divide our nation, and we see them as they encourage xenophobia and hate.”
“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,” Harris said.
Biden’s campaign on Tuesday also moved to raise money off the video, sending an email with the subject line “Unified Reich” and a statement that “this is serious stuff. And it's not like Trump's echoes of Nazi Germany are a one-time thing.”
Trump’s Truth Social account has circulated and then deleted controversial posts before. In 2022, for example, his account shared and then removed conspiratorial messages from a Q-Anon message board.
That same year, Trump was widely condemned after he had dinner at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort with white nationalist and antisemite Nick Fuentes, who frequently posts racist comments and is a Holocaust revisionist. Also at the dinner was Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who has also made antisemitic comments. The Republican National Committee passed a resolution condemning antisemitism following Trump’s dinner.
Jim Demers, a longtime New Hampshire Democratic strategist who is backing Biden and was at his event in New Hampshire on Tuesday, said it’s “important” for the president to draw contrast with Trump’s “scary” rhetoric on democracy.
“Donald Trump has talked about Hitler all too often and Donald Trump has talked about being a dictator, and so that is an important contrast to what Joe Biden believes as a protector of our democracy,” Demers said. “Donald Trump is giving us plenty of warning about how he would govern as president, and it is frightening.”
