Content warning: Language highlighted in this piece includes extreme anti-LGBTQ, ableist, and misogynistic commentary and slurs, and other profane language.

After former President Donald Trump posted a video mentioning a “unified Reich,” his campaign blamed a “random account” but left out that the account is seemingly part of a pro-Trump “meme team” that has ties to the campaign and is apparently led by Brenden Dilley, a podcaster who regularly spews extreme and hateful rhetoric on his online show.

On May 20, Trump posted on Truth Social a short video that shows hypothetical newspaper articles from after a Trump victory, including three mentions of a “unified Reich.” As The Associated Press explained, “The word 'Reich' is often largely associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, though the references in the video Trump shared appear to be a reference to the formation of the modern pan-German nation, unifying smaller states into a single Reich, or empire, in 1871.”

The post was deleted after Trump’s campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the video “was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word.”

Despite Leavitt’s claims that the video came from a “random” online account, the AP revealed it “appears to have been created” by a meme creator who goes by the username Ramble_Rants and is part of a “group of meme makers” that has ties to Trump’s campaign.

The account repeatedly defended and posted the video in response to criticism, saying it didn’t invoke “anything except peace and prosperity for Americans,” and the account positively responded to other users that offered praise after Trump shared the video.

On his May 21 show, apparent meme team leader and podcaster Dilley also defended the video, saying that people “imagined that there is Nazi propaganda,” and adding, “When there is no mistake, and there is only an imagined mistake, there is only an imagined — imagined — controversy, only f–––––– overreact to imagined controversy.” He added: “Double down!”

Regardless of the intention behind the video Trump shared, Dilley and his team’s association with the Trump campaign is noteworthy.

Trump and his campaign have repeatedly shared the meme team’s material, and the campaign reportedly “privately communicated with members of the meme team, giving them access and making specific requests for content,” and “in at least one instance … shared behind-the-scenes footage to be used in videos, according to members of the team.” Trump has been photographed with Dilley and reportedly “sent personalized notes to several of the group’s members, thanking them for their work.”

Additionally, Dilley disclosed that the campaign gave him and another member of the meme team a “special” and “exclusive” press credential for the campaign’s Iowa caucuses night, where “you hang out with all these wonderful people, and Don Jr. comes through, and Eric Trump comes through, and pretty much the entire Team Trump comes through.” (Reporting has indicated that several journalists from mainstream publications, including The Washington Post, NBC News, Axios, and Vanity Fair, have been denied press access to Trump’s campaign events.)

Dilley, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Arizona in 2018, previously supported the QAnon conspiracy theory, wearing QAnon hats and covering posts from QAnon’s central figure, “Q,” on his show. (He has since dubiously claimed that he “never was all in for Q.”)

On his show, Dilley also regularly spews extreme and hateful rhetoric:

• On January 19, Dilley said women who vote will be “faced with two options, continue to allow Democrats to control law enforcement, which will no doubtably result in them getting raped at some point in 2025 by an illegal immigrant or some migrant from a foreign land or some criminal who's completely been out — let out scot-free despite being charged multiple times with this crime.”
• On February 8, Dilley said, “I hope everything goes back to the 1950s,” when “women could focus on their pretty dresses and their house and their children and making me sexually satisfied all the time and food.” Dilley added that he would tell women, “You don't worry your pretty head about those politics” and “that’s a man's problem,” adding that instead “I’ll let you know who to vote for” and that “what you need to concern yourself with is how come the floors in the kitchen aren’t as shiny as they were two weeks ago.”
• On February 20, Dilley called for his meme team to target then-GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley and anyone she knows because they can’t pivot to focusing on Trump “until this person is utterly destroyed.” He also called Haley a “dumb bitch” and “a lying dirty ho” — and he has repeatedly used the word “bitch” to describe other women as well, including former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pop star Taylor Swift, former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, conservative commentator Candace Owens, and Vice President Kamala Harris.

• On March 15, Dilley dedicated much of his show to discussing Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling not to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting Trump and his co-defendants in the Georgia election interference and racketeering case — and Dilley seemed to urge his audience to use “asymmetrical warfare” against the judge and his family.
• On April 25, Dilley called U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson a “DEI” pick and repeatedly mispronounced her name: “Let's check-in on how that's fucking going because I'm sure she's not showing her asshole to the entire country. … I am absolutely positive she does not sit on the Supreme Court and embarrass the fuck out of herself publicly.”
• On May 9, Dilley said, “They don't know that we brought back the word f––––– yet” and “they have no idea how to deal with that or … r–––––.” He has repeatedly used the slur for LGBTQ people on the show, including to describe philanthropist George Soros’ son Alex.