Former President and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump posted a video to his social media platform Truth Social that depicts a hog-tied Joe Biden in the back of a pickup truck. Trump shared the video on Friday a day after he attended a wake for fallen NYPD officer Jonathan Diller on Long Island, New York. The video shows a pickup truck and an SUV driving down the highway, and on the truck’s tailgate is a graphic depicting the president as hog-tied and lying down in the bed of the pick-up. The pickup truck also has pro-Trump insignia, including a “TRUMP 4US” license plate and decals saying, “Trump 2024,” and “Together we’ll make America great again.”
“This image from Donald Trump is the type of crap you post when you’re calling for a bloodbath or when you tell the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by,'” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement to ABC News. “Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it’s time people take him seriously — just ask the Capitol Police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6,” Tyler added in his statement.
This is all too reminiscent of the 2012 effigy of Barack Obama hung in a noose. However, in that instance, it was a veteran who wished to express his right to free speech, not a presidential nominee.
This is not the first time Trump has referenced a violent acquisition of power. “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole – that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” he warned at an Ohio rally last month. Trump has taken after the dictatorial nature of Adolf Hitler; he has talked about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” and described his enemies as “vermin.” This is almost verbatim of Hitler’s fascist statements that led to the takeover of the Nazi party.
To share such imagery is a direct threat to Joe Biden’s life and can incite violence, inspiring his rabid followers to potentially attack Biden. We already saw what conspired on January 6th. The image of a hog-tied Biden in the bed of a truck is incredibly callous and disrespectful.
The US Secret Service released a statement saying it “does not confirm or comment on matters of protective intelligence.”
