By Nathan Layne
(Reuters) – Donald Trump has taken down a video posted to his Truth Social account that included reference to a “unified Reich” after President Joe Biden‘s campaign and others criticized the use of language often associated with the Nazi regime.
The 30-second video, which was posted on Monday afternoon, was no longer available on the website by early morning on Tuesday. A person familiar with the matter confirmed the post had been removed from the site.
The video portrayed a positive vision for the country should the Republican presidential candidate defeat Biden in November, featuring hypothetical newspaper headlines about a booming economy and a crackdown on immigration at the southern border.
At two points in the video, text below a larger headline reads: “INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED… DRIVEN BY THE CREATION OF A UNIFIED REICH.” The text is somewhat blurred, making it difficult to make out at first glance.
Trump has made a series of inflammatory remarks on the campaign trail, calling political enemies “vermin” and saying immigrants who entered the nation illegally were “poisoning the blood of our country.” Those drew heavy criticism from Democrats and some historians who said they echoed Nazi rhetoric.
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement on Monday that the video was created by someone outside the campaign and shared by a staffer who did not notice the use of the word “Reich” before posting.
She said Trump, who is facing a criminal trial in New York over a hush money payment to a porn star, was in court at the time. He did not answer a question about the video shouted by a reporter as he headed into court on Tuesday.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Biden’s campaign criticized the use of a word often associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich under Adolf Hitler.
“America, stop scrolling and pay attention. 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,'” Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said.
Singer also accused Trump of “parroting” ‘Mein Kampf’, Hitler’s manifesto, though the text in the video appears to have been copied from a Wikipedia page about World War One and refers in part to developments long preceding Hitler’s rule.
“German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich,” the Wikipedia page reads.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Andy Sullivan; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis)
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