Details title for the hypothetical “MAGA!!” text below “United Empire”.
X.com
hide title
Switch title
X.com
Details title for the hypothetical “MAGA!!” text below “United Empire”.
X.com
Former President Donald Trump posted a video Thursday night on The Truth Society depicting hypothetical headlines about Trump’s second term. Below it is the text about “Creating a Unified Empire”.
The post had been removed from Truth as of Tuesday morning, but some Twitter users reposted it before it was deleted.
Donald Trump now openly advocates “building a unified empire” in mock newspapers in campaign ads. pic.twitter.com/IsVg56qVvV
— MikeSington (@MikeSington) May 21, 2024
The film aims to show the news coverage that would be written if Trump were elected: “Economic Boom,” one headline read. “Borders closed,” another declared.
The video ends with a large title that reads “MAGA!!” Underneath it, written in blurry but clear text, is a smaller title that talks about “Building a Unified Empire.” The use of the German word “reich” is reminiscent of the Third Reich, the Nazis’ official name for their government and territory.
In another part of the video, a background caption also reads “President Trump Rejects Globalist War” – the word “warmonger” may have been edited out here. Some consider the word “globalist” an anti-Semitic slur.
Throughout the film, newspaper backgrounds appear to be cobbled together from news from the First World War era, referring to events and dates from that period.
The incident further deepened the former president’s longstanding ties to anti-Semitism.
Last fall, Trump called his opponents “vermin” and said in an interview with a far-right website that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of the country” — echoing Adolf Hitler’s claims.
Then, shortly after the “Pest” speech, Trump hosted a dinner attended by Nick Fuentes, an outspoken anti-Semite. Fuentes was a guest at a dinner hosted by Kanye West, another Trump ally with anti-Semitic views.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all of those cases. For example, he later posted on Truth Social that he “knew nothing about Fuentes” and that West brought him to the dinner party uninvited.
These anti-Semitic connections date back to the 2016 campaign. In early 2016, he briefly refused to deny support for him from white supremacists, including former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.
Later that year, he shared an image on Twitter with a six-pointed star and a caption declaring that Hillary Clinton was “the most corrupt candidate ever!” The star was placed next to Hillary Clinton. Next to Hillary Clinton’s face, photoshopped against a background of money.
As president in 2017, he responded to violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, by declaring “there are very good people on both sides.”
The Trump campaign has not yet responded to NPR’s request for comment.
