The controversy began on Friday when former US President Donald Trump shared a post on his social media platform Truth social. The post shows a video of a car, covered in American flags and the text “Trump 2024”, as well as a picture of President Joe Biden with his back tied.
Trump’s sharing of the video has been strongly criticized by Biden’s campaign team.
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– Trump regularly calls for political violence and it is high time people took him seriously, Michael Tyler, spokesman for the Biden campaign, wrote in a response to CNN.
Steven Cheung, spokesman for the Trump campaign, emphasizes that the photo was of a car traveling on the highway.
– Democrats and crazy fools have not only called for reprehensible violence against President Trump and his family, they have also turned the legal system against him, Steven Cheung continues in his written response to CNN.
“Carnage” and “Proud boys”
According to Biden’s campaign team, this is just the latest of several statements calling for violent behavior.
– This is the kind of garbage you put up when you call for “bloodbath” and tell the Proud boys to “wait and be prepared”, continued Michael Tyler.
He partly refers to the incident earlier in March when Trump said in a speech that there will be a “bloodbath” if he does not win the election. In retrospect, Trump clarified that he meant it would be a bloodbath for the American auto industry, but the statement has been criticized from several quarters for calling for violence similar to the storming of Congress on January 6, 2021.
Tyler also alludes to when Trump in September 2020 called on members of the far-right hate group Proud boys to “stand back and stand by”, i.e. to “wait and be prepared”.