Former Vice President Joe Biden has used footage of Nazi dictator and mass murderer Adolf Hitler in a new campaign ad attacking President Donald Trump.
The video, released by the Biden/Harris campaign on Oct. 25, combines Biden’s stump speech about the Charlottesville riots in August 2017 with the song “Where Is the Love” by the Black Eyed Peas, also featuring vocalist Jennifer Hudson.
The effort appears to be an attempt to re-create will.i.am’s 2008 video, “Yes We Can,” which set a speech by then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to music.
Though the speech was delivered after Obama suffered a surprise loss in the New Hampshire primary, it had an electrifying effect on his campaign, inspiring activists to continue the fight.
In Biden’s ad, the former vice president speaks straight to camera, repeating the Charlottesville “very fine people” hoax — the false claim that President Trump called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” (In fact, Trump said that the neo-Nazis should be “condemned totally.”)
One sequence in the video features archival footage of Adolf Hitler saluting a crowd in Nazi Germany. The crowd returns the infamous, chilling salute.
Adolf Hitler featured in Biden/Harris campaign video (Screenshot / YouTube)
Biden’s use of Hitler violates a requests by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a left-leaning Jewish civil rights organization, which asked candidates to avoid references to Nazis and the Holocaust in the 2020 campaign.
Recently, the ADL rebuked a left-wing organization for an ad that featured “images and video footage from Nazi Germany in a split-screen with images and photos of Trump rallies,” as described in The Hill.
“The video … is the latest in growing references to Hitler, Goebbels or other Nazi leaders. This has no place in the presidential race and is deeply offensive to the memories of 6M+ Jews systematically exterminated during the Shoah [Holocaust],” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted.
“We urge leaders & their surrogates to refrain from invoking the #Holocaust in the context of the current election. It is not the same. Stay focused on the issues,” he added.
Despite the use of Nazi imagery, Biden has said that his campaign — what he calls the “battle for the soul of our nation” — aims to unify Americans.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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