President Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned Donald Trump for a video reposted on Truth Social, which referenced a “Unified Reich” if Trump were to be reelected. The video, which has since been deleted, drew sharp criticism for its use of language reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
Biden shared his reaction in a video posted on X, where he questioned if the post was from Trump’s official account. “Wow. 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 said.
During a campaign fundraiser in Boston, Biden further criticized the post as un-American. “Yesterday, his campaign posted online about if he wins it’ll be a unified Reich — like the Third Reich,” Biden told attendees, as reported by the White House press pool. “This is the same guy that uses Hitler’s language, not America’s.”
Vice President Kamala Harris also denounced the video, addressing a convention of service employees in Philadelphia. She criticized the former president’s history of praising dictators and highlighted his use of language from Nazi Germany. Reported by Yahoo
“This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president and it is appalling,” Harris said. “Our freedoms and our very democracy are at stake.”
The phrase “Unified Reich” appeared in a video reposted by a Trump campaign staffer, which envisioned Trump’s hypothetical 2024 victory. The words appeared under a headline, “WHAT’S NEXT FOR AMERICA?” and suggested a significant increase in industrial strength driven by the creation of a “Unified Reich.”
The video remained online for over 18 hours before it was removed. The Trump campaign claimed the staffer did not notice the term when reposting the video. told by AP News
The Biden-Harris campaign condemned the post as part of a pattern of Trump’s praise for dictators and use of antisemitic tropes. Trump has denied reading “Mein Kampf,” and his campaign previously dismissed comparisons to Hitler or Mussolini as “ridiculous.”
Senate Republicans largely avoided commenting on the video. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) criticized the post as a serious mistake.
“To use that term in this day and age is simply inappropriate and it’s got to be corrected,” Rounds told ABC News. Most other Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), either deflected or claimed ignorance about the video’s content.
In contrast, Senate Democrats quickly denounced the video. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) expressed disbelief at the repeated use of Nazi-era language by Trump.
“Is this just an accident? Does he have some passion for that era?” Durbin asked. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called the post “petrifying” and said blaming a staffer was insufficient.
“Campaign staffers speak for the individual whose campaign it is, and he has to completely denounce and disown it or he is responsible for it,” Blumenthal said.
He added that the video is part of Trump’s appeal to white supremacists, antisemitism, and Islamophobia, which is rising not just in speech but also in hate crimes.
