WASHINGTON: The White House on Tuesday condemned a video posted by Donald Trump’s social media account showing fake headlines about a “unified reich” if he wins the 2024 presidential election.

President Joe Biden’s election campaign accused Trump of echoing anti-Semitic ideas, while the White House said any content that promoted Nazi Germany was “sickening”. The video was eventually taken down from Trump’s account on his Truth Social site on Tuesday, the day after it was posted.

“What happens after Donald Trump wins? What’s next for America?” a voiceover asks in the 30-second clip, which flashes a series of fictitious news stories painting a picture of American prosperity.

Amid headlines including “Economy booms!” and “Border is closed,” one mentions “the creation of a unified reich.” No direct reference to Nazis is made in the clip, but the word “reich” is commonly used in reference to the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler.

Campaign spokeswoman for the former president says the post had no official backing and ‘reich’ reference was unintentional

Other references in the video, which appeared to have multiple copy-and-pasted chunks of text to fill out the “newspaper” background, mention World War I. The “unified reich” headline appears to reference the 1871 unification of Germany.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the post had no official backing and that the “reich” reference was unintentional. “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,” she said. Trump didn’t respond to shouted questions about the video as he attended his historic criminal hush money trial in New York.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2024