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By Aila Slisco
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Former President Donald Trump was called "the monster" amid fierce backlash after sharing a video online that features an image of President Joe Biden tied up as an apparent kidnapping victim.
Trump shared the 20-second video to his Truth Social account on Friday, one day after he attended the wake of recently slain New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer Jonathan Diller, a death that Republicans have been highlighting amid "law and order" messaging prior to November's expected rematch between Trump and Biden.
The video, backed by somber music and captioned "3/28/24 | LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK," may have been made as Trump's motorcade made its way to Diller's wake. About seven seconds into the video, a truck featuring the Biden decal appears in the frame.
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The decal shows a doctored image of the current president, laying on a floor and tied up with a gag in his mouth—as though he has been kidnapped and is being hauled off by the truck, which is flying several other pro-Trump and anti-Biden messages and flags.
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Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung sent the following statement to Newsweek via email on Friday: "That picture was on the back of a pick up truck that was traveling down the highway. 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 statement went on to include a long list of alleged threats from Democrats, all from 2018 or earlier. Only one was a quote from Biden, who said the following of Trump in March 2018: "If we were in high school, I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him."
Newsweek reached out for comment to the White House and the U.S. Secret Service via email on Friday night.
Biden's appearance in the video does not appear to be merely incidental, as the camera zooms in on the decal image toward the end of the clip. The image quickly sparked outrage from many on X, formerly Twitter.
"This is what the monster just posted," Harvard Law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe wrote in response to the image. "A realistic picture of President Biden tied up helpless in the back of a van with Trump's gloating mug in front of the scene. He's threatening the president's life. That's a felony. If anyone else did it, the feds would arrest him. What now?"
"I know from experience how the Secret Service interacts with people who make threats against POTUS, even ones they can't carry out," wrote former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance. "This, from a former President, is totally out of bounds. It's time to stop letting Trump break the rules. Long past time."
"All Trump has left as a strategy is violence," wrote former Obama administration official and current CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.
"Is anyone still surprised when you see Donald Trump go as low as he possibly can???" Richard Ojeda, retired U.S. Army major and former state senator in West Virginia, wrote. "Selling bibles, posting pics of Biden being tied up. Constant lies. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if Trump starts using racial slurs as a norm. After all ... He is the worst human ever!"
"Dude, Trump just posted a video of a Trump vehicle parade where one of the vehicles had a giant picture on the tailgate of Joe Biden tied up on the ground," wrote Cryptic Politics, an account associated with the former GOP presidential campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. "What has gotten into people? This is crazy stuff."
"Imagine if Joe Biden tweeted out a video of someone driving down the road with an image of Trump tied up in the back of a pickup truck," social media personality Brian Krassenstein posted. "You already saw how MAGA reacted to Kathy Griffin, who I agree was wrong in what she did."
"Can we all agree that a Presidential candidate sharing this video is over-the-top and pathetic?" he added. "Is this the man you want as your leader?"
Former U.S. Representative George Santos, who was ejected from Congress late last year after repeatedly lying about his background during his successful 2022 campaign in Long Island, responded to Krassenstein by sharing an image of comedian Griffin's infamous staged photo of herself holding Trump's decapitated head.
"Y'all own this @krassenstein [pointing emoji]," Santos wrote. "She's one of yours ... where was your outrage? Or was this 'art'? We on Long Island are very 'artsy' too! I know the truck and the owner and guess what, now I want to autograph it to trigger your team a bit more!"
Trump regularly shares videos and images disparaging Biden on social media, including "F*** Joe Biden" and associated "Let's Go Brandon" memes, although he has not issued any direct violent threats to the president.
Prior to the 2020 election, Trump shared a post on Twitter that featured a supporter's evidence-free accusation of Biden of being a pedophile and the hashtag "#PedoBiden."
More recently, the Trump and Biden 2024 campaigns have been ramping up social media attacks on each other, with the former president's ongoing legal difficulties making an appearance in one notable exchange earlier this week.
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