- By Mike Wendling and Jake Horton
- BBC News and BBC Verify
Image source, Trump Campaign
The Trump campaign has deleted a video posted to the former president’s Truth Social account, which referenced a “unified Reich”.
The 30-second clip outlined a vision of the US under Mr Trump through stylised headlines, one of which used a term now often associated with Nazi Germany.
It appeared on Mr Trump’s account on Monday and was deleted the next day.
A spokeswoman said it was not an official campaign video and was posted by a junior staff member, not Mr Trump.
The video starts with text heralding a “TRUMP LANDSLIDE” along with a voiceover saying “What happens if Donald Trump wins?”
It then scrolls past a headline which reads: “Industrial strength and production had significantly increased driven by the creation of a unified Reich”.
Germany was unified in that year as a Reich, or empire, more than half a century before the Nazi Party rose to power and declared the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler.
In later images in the video, headlines including “Border Is Closed” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported” appear, alongside a picture of a portion of the wall on the US southern boarder and – incongruously – the dates of World War One.
Karoline Leavitt, Mr Trump’s spokeswoman, said the post “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”.
Image source, Trump Campaign
BBC Verify research indicates that the probable origin of the graphics is a video template website where users pay to download content they can then customise.
US media reported that the version appearing on Truth Social was first posted on X/Twitter by a user called “Ramble Rants”, who regularly reposts videos from a pro-Trump group called the Dilley Meme Team.
The BBC contacted the Dilley Meme Team and the Trump campaign for further comment.
James Singer, campaign spokesman for US President Joe Biden, said: “Donald Trump posting a ‘unified Reich’ video is part of a pattern of his praise for dictators and echoing antisemitic tropes.”
“He is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a ‘unified Reich’.”
Mr Trump recently faced criticism for saying that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and calling his opponents “vermin”.
He was also criticised for having dinner with Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier, in 2022.
The former president regularly rails against “fascists” and “communists” at his rallies.
