May 25, 2024

ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR II: Biden Spreads Misinformation About Trump Calling for a ‘Unified Reich.’

The Trump campaign disavowed the ad and deleted the Truth Social post.

But as it turns out, the assertion that Trump was tacitly endorsing some form of Nazi government is highly misleading, if not outright false. The video was made using a newspaper template that is widely available, and that template includes references to the world wars. Some have suggested the template actually refers to WWI, not WWII.

To be clear, the template is just that—a template. The point of the ad is obviously not to suggest that Trump’s policies have anything to do with the preexisting headlines.

* * * * * * * *

In his response, Biden watches the Trump ad and then says—with rising anger—”A unified Reich? That’s Hitler’s language. That’s not America’s.”

Again, this is an inaccurate summary of the video. But don’t hold your breath waiting for the media fact-checkers to spring into action and correct him. Few mainstream journalists bothered to set the record straight. (The Atlantic‘s David A. Graham and Vox‘s Zack Beauchamp did, to their credit.) An Axios writeup of Biden’s response offers zero pushback. It was the same story at NPR and Politico.

None of this is to say that Trump is free of loathsome associations. He told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” and he infamously dined with Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago. (Trump claimed he didn’t know Fuentes and had not specifically invited him.) But Biden and the media have seized upon a nothingburger here, and the media’s vast fact-checking apparatus is suddenly asleep at the wheel.

Unexpectedly! Although to be fair, given the left’s obsession with calling everyone they have even the slightest disagreement with a National Socialist and an ever-increasing hatred of Jews, I can understand them being reluctant to give up their turf.

Also unexpectedly, CNN managed to find the source of the phrase:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll