President Joe Biden has sharpened his rhetoric against Republicans lately, likening them to fascists and saying they don’t believe in democracy.
Former president Donald Trump, meanwhile, shared a photoshopped image of Biden pooping his pants.
The contrast between the current and former president has never been starker, as Biden signs landmark bills into law, and Trump readies a possible 2024 campaign while squirming under various federal investigations into his potentially illegal conduct before and after leaving the White House.
Trump unraveled Tuesday on Truth Social, his social media platform where, unlike Twitter or Facebook, he can share gross and inflammatory content unchecked. The former president spent the morning amplifying bizarre memes of Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.
It followed a similar meltdown Trump had on Monday, when he demanded a do-over election that would presumably reinstate him as president nearly two years after he lost to Biden by 7 million votes.
On Tuesday, Trump shared “ReTruths” of other users’ gripes about how the 2020 election had supposedly been stolen from him, along with some QAnon conspiracy theory material — and also much weirder stuff, like a doctored photo of Biden in an amorous embrace with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Not to mention an image of Biden falling off his bike on the steps to Air Force One. A meme with text reading, “If you still hate Trump after this 18 month shitshow, your commitment to stupidity is impressive.” And a fake pic of Biden blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for a brown stain on the seat of his pants. Trump followed it sarcastically with: “Why are people so mean?”
The former president also shared posts attacking the Justice Department for its investigations into the riot by Trump’s supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and its separate probe into Trump’s hoarding of presidential documents at his home in Florida. The National Archives has said Trump violated the Presidential Records Act by failing to turn over documents at the end of his term.
The FBI turned up the heat on a long simmering investigation of Trump when it searched his Florida residence last month, recovering a cache of White House material. The federal probe hasn’t yet led to an indictment. Trump’s lawyers have argued he cooperated with authorities, and that anything he took was covered by executive privilege.
Trump and his allies in Congress have railed against the FBI as “corrupt” and “illegitimate.” Their rhetoric has been accompanied by violence and threats from Trump supporters, including a man who tried to breach an FBI building in Cleveland and wound up getting killed by police. Republican lawmakers have begun saying violence is inevitable if Trump is held accountable.
“If there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the [Hillary] Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the streets,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday.
Trump kept up the attacks on federal law enforcement Tuesday, sharing posts depicting the Justice Department as an election-stealing weapon of the Democratic party.
“Presidential Records Act was fully adhered to by me, but not by the FBI. They RAIDED my home,” Trump wrote in a post of his own.
For much of his presidency, Biden avoided trashing his predecessor. But in recent weeks, he has forthrightly denounced Trump and his “Make America Great Again” movement as “semi-fascism.”
The White House indicated this week that Biden would continue the anti-MAGA message during a Pennsylvania rally on Tuesday, despite Republican complaints that Biden has inappropriately sought to stir up “anti-Republican sentiment.”
“We’re at a serious moment in our nation’s history,” Biden said last week. “The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security, they’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace — embrace — political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.”