A video posted by Donald Trump on social media referencing a “unified empire” has been traced back to a template created by a Turkish designer more than a year ago, according to a CNN report.
Critics, including Joe Biden, condemned Trump for a video posted to his Truth Social account on Monday with a hypothetical headline from his second presidential term: “Industrial Power Has Increased Significantly … Driven by the Creation of a Unified Empire.”
The German word ‘reich’ is strongly associated with Nazism, as Adolf Hitler called his regime the ‘Third Reich’. The video raised alarm among Trump critics, who note that the former president regularly repeats Nazi rhetoric — especially in his language around immigration.
According to a new report from CNN, the video was created using a template created by graphic designer Enes Şimşek, who lives near Istanbul. The template was available on video and video effects resource Video Hive and was created at least a year ago, the network reported, confirming that it was not created by the Trump campaign for this specific use.
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The Trump campaign stated that the message was not an official campaign video and was reposted by an employee who did not notice the word.
The campaign did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
The language in the video was reportedly taken verbatim from a Wikipedia article on World War I, which stated: “German industrial strength and production had increased significantly after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified empire.”
Şimşek confirmed to CNN that he had posted the information fill-in text on Wikipedia for customers to replace with their own wording, which the video shared by Trump did not do. He said he sold 16 copies of the stencil at a price of $21 each.
“When I did this work, I never thought that such an event would ever happen,” Şimşek said in a blog post explaining the incident. “[Two] days ago this template was used as Trump’s campaign video. But I think they forgot to change some of the text when they edited the project. And things got very angry.
After Trump posted the video, the Biden campaign cited other previous comments and actions by Trump who sympathized with Nazism, including his claims that Hitler “did some good things” and praising neo-Nazi protesters during the Unite the Right 2017 rally in Charlottesville.
“Donald Trump doesn’t play games; he is telling America exactly what he plans to do when he regains power: rule as a dictator over a ‘united empire,’” Biden spokesman James Singer said in a statement.
“Recreating Mein Kampf while warning of a bloodbath if you lose is the kind of riotous behavior you get from someone who knows that democracy continues to reject his extreme vision of chaos, division and violence.”
Şimşek was told by the video tool site to remove the language from his template, which he has now done. “By the way, thanks to Trump for choosing my template,” he said.
