Former President Donald J. Trump posted a video on Friday to his social media website that features an image of President Biden with his hands and feet tied together.
Mr. Trump posted the video to Truth Social early Friday afternoon with a line that said it was filmed on Long Island on Thursday, when Mr. Trump attended the wake of a slain New York City police officer in Massapequa Park, N.Y. The video shows two moving trucks decorated with flags and decals supporting Mr. Trump. The tailgate of the second vehicle features the image of Mr. Biden.
Macabre imagery targeting Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies frequently circulates online among right-wing provocateurs and pro-Trump groups, and in some cases has been featured at conservative conferences. Photos of trucks featuring similar images of Mr. Biden tied up have been shared across social media, and online vendors sell vehicle stickers with the image.
Mr. Trump’s promotion of the video featuring the image reflects the increasingly caustic and personal attacks that he has directed against Mr. Biden — for example, in a speech this month he said that “everything Joe Biden touches turns to” filth, though he used an expletive — and it extends a record in which the former president features violent imagery on his social media accounts.
“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 Jan. 6,” said Michael Tyler, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, referring to a pro-Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said “that picture was on the back of a pickup truck that was traveling down the highway,” adding that “Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”
The video was still on Mr. Trump’s Truth Social page as of late Friday evening.
The Trump campaign has repeatedly cited Democratic statements from years past to defend Mr. Trump’s rhetoric. Mr. Cheung on Friday pointed to a statement by Mr. Biden in 2018 in which he said, referring to Mr. Trump, “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.” Mr. Biden was responding to comments that Mr. Trump had made about women on a tape linked to the show “Access Hollywood.”
Mr. Trump has previously posted doctored photos and videos depicting him physically attacking political opponents, focusing particularly on Mr. Biden in the last year. The former president has, for example, repeatedly shared videos depicting him hitting Mr. Biden with golf balls. Mr. Trump also posted a photo last year of him holding a baseball bat next to Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, who is prosecuting Mr. Trump in connection to a hush money payment made to a porn star during the 2016 campaign.
Mr. Trump has also used increasingly authoritarian language on the campaign trail, repeatedly saying that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and describing his political opponents in a Veterans Day speech last year as “vermin” who needed to be “rooted out.”
This month, Mr. Trump said that some migrants were “not people” and, amid a discussion of the auto industry, that the country would face a “blood bath” if he lost the election. A few days later, he attacked Jewish Democrats in a radio interview, saying that Jews who vote for Democrats hate their religion and Israel.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump posted to Truth Social a new attack on the daughter of Justice Juan M. Merchan, who is overseeing his hush money trial in Manhattan.
The attack linked to a news article that displays two pictures of the daughter, both of which appeared in Mr. Trump’s post.
The attack came soon after an official working for Mr. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, argued in a letter to the court that Justice Merchan’s daughter was covered by a limited gag order that the judge issued earlier in the week. The letter urged the judge to make clear that the gag order protects family members of the judge from attacks by Mr. Trump. The judge is expected to state in the coming days whether he agrees.
Mr. Trump also posted a handful of attacks on the judge’s daughter earlier this week. His lawyers have said that because she has done work for Democrats, Mr. Trump should be able to attack her, insisting that his freedom of political speech is being curtailed.
In one post earlier this week, Mr. Trump claimed that an account on X with a photo of him behind bars belonged to the judge’s daughter. Court officials said the account was not hers.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
Source: nytimes.com
