Former President Donald Trump ended his year-long hiatus from X – the social media site formerly known as Twitter – by releasing a new Hollywood-style campaign video portraying him as a nation’s hero.
The video includes footage of the FBI raiding his Florida estate, which seized classified documents, as well as an audio recording of Trump vowing to fight back and “wipe out the deep state.”
The Republican presidential candidate’s return to X comes ahead of an interview scheduled for Monday evening with the platform’s owner, Trump supporter Elon Musk. Trump shared a photo ad for the interview on his feed.
The last time Trump posted on X was on August 24, 2023, when he shared a photo of his mugshot after being charged with participating in a conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
After the 2021 insurrection, Trump was banned from X for nearly two years. After Musk bought the platform in late 2022, he was allowed to access it again. By that time, however, Trump had already established his rival platform, Truth Social, which he now uses regularly, despite having far fewer followers than on X (7.5 million followers on Truth Social versus 88 million on X, as of Monday).
Another video, marked as an ad, began circulating on X on Monday morning. It resembles a Trump post but does not appear in his feed.
The video shows old footage of former President Ronald Reagan – a favorite of Republicans in the years following his presidency – and suggests that Reagan, who died in 2004, would support Trump as a presidential candidate.
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Reagan asks in an audio recording of his 1980 debate with then-President Jimmy Carter.
If the answer is no, Reagan continues, “then I could suggest another choice that you have.” The video then switches to Trump as that choice.
A representative for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the use of the decades-old footage.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologized in February after a Super PAC supporting his independent presidential candidacy funded a campaign ad that closely resembles one he created for his uncle, John F. Kennedy, during JFK’s 1960 campaign.
Some members of the Kennedy family were upset by the video, saying JFK did not support his nephew’s political views.
