Donald Trump’s Excuse for ‘Unified Reich’ Video Raises Eyebrows

Donald Trump’s official explanation for the highly controversial line “unified reich” in a recent video posted on the former president’s social media is raising concerns.

His spokesperson’s reason behind the appearance of the expression, which is associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich and its genocide of six million Jews, seems to differ from access information about the social media account provided by Trump.

Trump and President Joe Biden became the presumptive 2024 Republican and Democratic presidential nominees respectively in March following a series of primary wins. Posting on Truth Social on Tuesday, the former president shared a video suggesting there will be a “unified reich” if he wins the 2024 election.

In the 30-second clip, the unknown video narrator asks “what happens after Donald Trump wins,” while a number of mocked-up newspaper headlines appear in the background. One says “industrial strength significantly increased driven by the creation of a unified reich.”

There is no suggestion that Trump was overtly referencing Nazi Germany and its ideologies which also led to the persecution and mass murder of other groups, including Roma, homosexuals, and disabled people. An estimated 405,399 of Americans died in World War II in the fight against the fascist regimes of Germany, Japan and Italy.

Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary, previously told Newsweek in a statement: “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, while the [former] President was in court.

“The real extremist is Joe Biden who has turned his back on Israel and the Jewish people by bowing down to radical antisemites and terrorist sympathizers in his party like Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”

Newsweek has reached out to Biden’s campaign via email for comment.

Since Leavitt’s response, some have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to raise concern over the explanation and who exactly has access to Trump’s Truth Social account.

X user Patriot Takes shared a video of Trump speaking at Mar-a-lago, Florida, in April in which Trump spoke about how Dan Scavino, a political adviser who served in the Trump administration as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications from 2020 to 2021 and Director of Social Media from 2017 to 2021, is “the only one that has my number” seemingly referring to his Truth Social account, adding he is the only who can “say something horrible.”

“At Mar-a-Lago in April, Trump stated that only himself and Dan Scavino have access to his Truth Social account. This contradicts Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt’s implication that an unnamed staffer was to blame for posting the Reich / MAGA video,” Patriot Takes says on X.

Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s campaign spokesperson via email for comment.

In addition, legal analyst Joyce Vance noted Leavitt’s response, adding “Hard to miss “unified reich” frozen in the middle of the screen underneath “MAGA” when the video ends.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign told ABC News the video was “parroting Mein Kampf,” referring to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s 1925 autobiographical manifesto which is held to contain antisemitic and genocidal passages.

James Singer said: “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.’ Parroting Mein Kampf while you warn of a bloodbath if you lose is the type of unhinged behavior you get from a guy who knows that democracy continues to reject his extreme vision of chaos, division, and violence.”