Trump accused of inciting violence after posting video with photo of hog-tied Biden in pickup truck

Former President Donald Trump is being accused of “inciting political violence” after posting a video on social media showing an image of President Biden with his hands and feet bound in the back of a pickup truck.

The video, shared on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social on Friday, drew immediate condemnation by the Biden campaign, with its campaign’s communications director drawing comparisons to the violent attack on the Capitol by a Trump-loving mob three years ago.

“Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it’s time people take him seriously,” spokesman Michael Tyler told the Daily News in a statement Saturday. “Just ask the Capitol police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6.”

The video shows a passing pickup truck adorned with “Trump 2024” signs and several black flags with a thin blue stripe in the middle, which are often hailed as a show of support for law enforcement and criticized as a symbol of white supremacy.

Pictured on the back of the vehicle is a Photoshopped image of Biden hog-tied, made to appear as if he’s in the bed of the truck.

According to its caption, the video was taken a day earlier on Long Island. On Thursday, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was in Massapequa to attend the wake of an NYPD officer killed on Monday in Queens.

A spokesperson for the latest presidential campaign of the twice-impeached former president defended the image, suggesting Democrats are to blame for not condemning political violence against Trump.

“That picture was on the back of a pickup truck that was traveling down the highway,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “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.”

But some legal scholars say the use of this kind of imagery against the president could be interpreted as a serious threat.

“This is what the monster just posted. 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,” Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe wrote of the image on social media Friday night. “He’s threatening the president’s life. That’s a felony. If anyone else did it, the feds would arrest him.”

Joyce Vance, who served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017, said Trump “threatened the President of the United States” by sharing the post, a move she called “unprecedented and out of bounds.”

“If you or I did this, the Secret Service would be on our doorstep within hours,” Vance wrote Saturday morning in a lengthy blog post.

“It’s time for the people with authority to do so to deal with him,” she added. “Sure, he’s the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, but they won’t reign (sic) him in. And someone is going to get hurt if he isn’t.”

With News Wire Services