March 30, 2024
Trump faces backlash after sharing video of a hogtied Biden in the back of a pickup truck
- Donald Trump shared an image of Joe Biden hog-tied on the tailgate of a passing pickup truck.
- The video was reported to have been filmed in Long Island, New York.
- The Republican presidential nominee was accused of inciting violence against President Joe Biden.
Former President Donald Trump is facing intense criticism for what Democrats say is a new low this weekend after sharing a video on his social media website that has an image of President Joe Biden hogtied.
In a 20-second video posted on the presumptive Republican nominee’s Truth Social page, a pickup truck featuring pro-Trump flags can be seen with a large decal on its rear end showing Biden bound by his legs and hands, lying horizontally.
Promoting the video ignited a new round of condemnation from Trump’s critics, who pointed to how the GOP contender has repeatedly used grisly images in the past and who asserted it crosses a serious line in U.S. politics.
- “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,” Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law professor emeritus said in a March 29 post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
- “That’s a felony. If anyone else did it, the feds would arrest him. What now?”
Biden campaign spokesman Michael Tyler slammed Trump for posting the video.
- “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,’” Tyler said in a statement. “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.”
When reached for comment on the image in the video, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said,
- “That picture was on the back of a pick up truck that was traveling down the highway.” Cheung also accused “Democrats and crazed lunatics” of calling for violence against Trump and his family, arguing that “they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”
Cheung pointed to comments by Biden in 2018, before he declared his candidacy, when he said that if he and Trump were in high school he’d “take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him” if he heard him demeaning women.
Trump was in Long Island Thursday for the wake of a fallen NYPD officer Jonathan Diller.
