Drudge Report Runs Photo of Trump Appearing to Give Nazi Salute Over Headline About Blaming ‘The Jews’
AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
Former President Donald Trump long ago made it clear that he was no longer a fan of news aggregator website The Drudge Report, due to an ongoing series of critical — often brutally mocking — photos and headlines it has published about him. Friday’s main headline seems unlikely to reverse that course.
The site founded by Matt Drudge first rose to national prominence in the late 1990s with breaking news during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. It was originally viewed as conservative-leaning and favorable to Trump. That goodwill turned sour during the Covid-19 pandemic. During the 2020 election cycle, the site featured snarky headlines and images that demonstrably ruffled the 45th president’s feathers, like comparing him to President Jimmy Carter after a rough round of polls or asking if Trump was a “fake billionaire” after a bombshell New York Times report on his taxes.
Trump’s legal troubles have been a rich source for Drudge’s pointed barbs, posting images of the former president in an orange jumpsuit and spelling out “GUILTY” 34 times in bright red, all-caps letters after Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in May. The debate with Vice President Kamala Harris again got key placement on the Drudge homepage, with an AI-generated image of Trump surrounded by cats and ducks and the headline “THE END.” Monica Lewinsky herself tweeted her approval of that headline.
Drudge’s Friday headline was about shocking — yes, even for the ex-president — comments that he made in front of the conservative Israeli-American Council at an event Thursday evening in Washington, D.C. Trump has repeatedly complained about not getting more support from Jewish voters, even going so far as to say that Jews who vote for Democrats “should have their head examined.”
At Thursday’s event, he preemptively voiced how he would blame the Jews if he loses the presidential election in November, telling the audience “I really haven’t been treated right,” and “the Democrats are bad to Israel, very bad,” so “if I don’t win this election,” then “in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”
Later in that same speech, Trump lambasted Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S. government, as “a Palestinian” and even made the ridiculous claim that “Schumer is Hamas all the way.”
The Drudge Report linked to a Bloomberg article about Trump’s remarks along with yet another bright red, all-caps headline, “TRUMP: BLAME THE JEWS IF I LOSE.”
What is getting considerable attention — even more so than the headline — is the photo paired with it.
Screenshot via The Drudge Report.
The photograph, which appears to match one from the 2016 Getty Images archives, shows Trump in his customary navy suit, red MAGA hat — and right arm outstretched in what was probably a wave at a campaign rally crowd, but was caught in that moment in a similar position to the “Heil Hitler” salute that’s still popular among neo-Nazi groups today.
A reverse Google image search found multiple examples of that photo being used for articles and blog posts that were criticizing then-candidate Trump’s attacks on the free press, his appeal among the far right both in America and abroad, and authoritarian aspirations. One July 2016 New York magazine article titled “How Hitler’s Rise to Power Explains Why Republicans Accept Donald Trump” even added the text “A possibly unfair image of Donald Trump” to the photo credit caption.
