By ELI STOKOLS, LAUREN EGAN and BEN JOHANSEN | 04/17/2024 05:22 PM EDT
As former President DONALD TRUMP’s trial opened Monday in New York City, NYT’s MAGGIE HABERMAN posted an update from the courtroom: “Trump appears to be sleeping. His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack.”
The post, which immediately went viral on X and was almost instantly the talk of cable news panels, shot around Biden world in emails and text messages between White House, campaign aides and other Democrats close to the administration.
“Hitler Pig sleepy,” one individual said on one thread as a caption to Haberman’s post.
You read that right: “Hitler Pig.”
That moniker, four people in Biden’s orbit told West Wing Playbook, is one that aides to and allies of the president — generally younger, more digitally native individuals, not senior staffers, one person clarified — frequently use to describe Trump.
A Google search of the term brings up various images (search at your own risk) depicting the former president as, well, a pig. With a swastika armband. That suggests the characterization started online and was adopted later by people in the president’s orbit.
As West Wing Playbook reported earlier this year, President JOE BIDEN is often far saltier about Trump behind closed doors than he is in public, even as his willingness to publicly attack his predecessor and likely 2024 challenger in speeches and offhand comments has grown.
After referring obliquely to “the former guy” in the months after taking office, Biden is increasingly willing, if not eager, to deliver sharp, frontal attacks on Trump as the fall campaign draws near — including at a Tuesday appearance in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he spun a tale about a man drowning in debt before delivering the punchline: “I said I’m sorry, Donald, I can’t help.”
Still, none of the White House and campaign aides who have referred to Trump as “Hitler Pig” expect Biden to go quite that far.
According to the four people who were granted anonymity to speak to West Wing Playbook about the term’s usage in Biden world, it started in late 2022 after Trump invited NICK FUENTES, an avowed white nationalist and Holocaust denier, to dinner at Mar-a-Lago along with the rapper KANYE WEST.
The Trump campaign did not initially respond to West Wing Playbook’s requests for comment, but did so shortly after this article was published.
“Joe Biden talks a lot about decency, but he and his staff don’t have a decent bone in their bodies,” said Brian Hughes, a senior campaign adviser. “These ridiculous and gross comments reflect the failure and dishonesty of the entire Biden operation.”
Calling Trump “Hitler Pig” is not so much an attempt to inject some levity into private conversations as it is a way to characterize what Biden aides see as one of Trump’s most outrageous behavior patterns, the four people all said.
Trump, who shot to the front of a crowded Republican primary field in 2016 by denigrating undocumented immigrants and proposing a ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries, has at times evoked the rhetoric of ADOLF HITLER, saying in December 2023 that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Trump later said in a radio interview that he “never knew that Hitler said it” and volunteered that he knew “nothing” about Hitler.
That contradicts reporting going back three decades detailing Trump’s fascination with Hitler. In 1990, Vanity Fair’s MARIE BRENNER reported that Trump’s first wife, IVANA TRUMP, told her divorce lawyer how Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches on his nightstand. And books released after Trump’s presidency ended have contained additional examples.
According to MICHAEL C. BENDER’s “Frankly, We Did Win This Election,” Trump told former chief of staff JOHN KELLY that “Hitler did a lot of good things.” He also complained to Kelly amid pushback from military leaders that he wished they could “be like the German generals” during World War II, according to “The Divider” by PETER BAKER and SUSAN GLASSER. Kelly further recounted to JIM SCIUTTO for his book “The Return of Great Powers” that he had tried to convince Trump that his Hitler references needed to stop. “Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,” Kelly recalled telling Trump.
Whenever such revelations hit X, formerly known as Twitter, or the news, Biden aides often send clips around or say to colleagues in the room, “Hey, did you see what Hitler Pig said?”
Source (Archive)
As former President DONALD TRUMP’s trial opened Monday in New York City, NYT’s MAGGIE HABERMAN posted an update from the courtroom: “Trump appears to be sleeping. His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack.”
The post, which immediately went viral on X and was almost instantly the talk of cable news panels, shot around Biden world in emails and text messages between White House, campaign aides and other Democrats close to the administration.
“Hitler Pig sleepy,” one individual said on one thread as a caption to Haberman’s post.
You read that right: “Hitler Pig.”
That moniker, four people in Biden’s orbit told West Wing Playbook, is one that aides to and allies of the president — generally younger, more digitally native individuals, not senior staffers, one person clarified — frequently use to describe Trump.
A Google search of the term brings up various images (search at your own risk) depicting the former president as, well, a pig. With a swastika armband. That suggests the characterization started online and was adopted later by people in the president’s orbit.
As West Wing Playbook reported earlier this year, President JOE BIDEN is often far saltier about Trump behind closed doors than he is in public, even as his willingness to publicly attack his predecessor and likely 2024 challenger in speeches and offhand comments has grown.
After referring obliquely to “the former guy” in the months after taking office, Biden is increasingly willing, if not eager, to deliver sharp, frontal attacks on Trump as the fall campaign draws near — including at a Tuesday appearance in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he spun a tale about a man drowning in debt before delivering the punchline: “I said I’m sorry, Donald, I can’t help.”
Still, none of the White House and campaign aides who have referred to Trump as “Hitler Pig” expect Biden to go quite that far.
According to the four people who were granted anonymity to speak to West Wing Playbook about the term’s usage in Biden world, it started in late 2022 after Trump invited NICK FUENTES, an avowed white nationalist and Holocaust denier, to dinner at Mar-a-Lago along with the rapper KANYE WEST.
The Trump campaign did not initially respond to West Wing Playbook’s requests for comment, but did so shortly after this article was published.
“Joe Biden talks a lot about decency, but he and his staff don’t have a decent bone in their bodies,” said Brian Hughes, a senior campaign adviser. “These ridiculous and gross comments reflect the failure and dishonesty of the entire Biden operation.”
Calling Trump “Hitler Pig” is not so much an attempt to inject some levity into private conversations as it is a way to characterize what Biden aides see as one of Trump’s most outrageous behavior patterns, the four people all said.
Trump, who shot to the front of a crowded Republican primary field in 2016 by denigrating undocumented immigrants and proposing a ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries, has at times evoked the rhetoric of ADOLF HITLER, saying in December 2023 that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Trump later said in a radio interview that he “never knew that Hitler said it” and volunteered that he knew “nothing” about Hitler.
That contradicts reporting going back three decades detailing Trump’s fascination with Hitler. In 1990, Vanity Fair’s MARIE BRENNER reported that Trump’s first wife, IVANA TRUMP, told her divorce lawyer how Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches on his nightstand. And books released after Trump’s presidency ended have contained additional examples.
According to MICHAEL C. BENDER’s “Frankly, We Did Win This Election,” Trump told former chief of staff JOHN KELLY that “Hitler did a lot of good things.” He also complained to Kelly amid pushback from military leaders that he wished they could “be like the German generals” during World War II, according to “The Divider” by PETER BAKER and SUSAN GLASSER. Kelly further recounted to JIM SCIUTTO for his book “The Return of Great Powers” that he had tried to convince Trump that his Hitler references needed to stop. “Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,” Kelly recalled telling Trump.
Whenever such revelations hit X, formerly known as Twitter, or the news, Biden aides often send clips around or say to colleagues in the room, “Hey, did you see what Hitler Pig said?”
Source (Archive)
