Donald Trump has deleted a video posted to his Truth Social account that included reference to a “unified Reich”.

It came after US President Joe Biden’s campaign and others criticised the use of language often associated with the Nazi regime.

The 30-second video, posted on Monday afternoon (US time), was no longer available on the website by early Tuesday.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed the post had been removed from the site.

The video portrayed a positive vision for the country should the Republican presidential candidate defeat Biden, a Democrat, in November’s election. It featured hypothetical newspaper headlines about a booming economy and a crackdown on immigration at the southern US border.

At two points in the video, text below a larger headline reads: “INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED… DRIVEN BY THE CREATION OF A UNIFIED REICH.” The text is somewhat blurred, making it difficult to make out at first glance.

Trump has made a series of inflammatory remarks on the campaign trail, calling political enemies “vermin” and saying immigrants who entered the US illegally were “poisoning the blood of our country”. They have drawn heavy criticism from Democrats and some historians who said they echoed Nazi rhetoric.

Speaking at a fundraiser in Boston on Tuesday, Biden criticised the use of a word often associated with Nazi Germany’s Third Reich under Adolf Hitler.

“This is Hitler’s language, not America’s,” Biden said.

Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that the video was created by someone outside the campaign and shared by a staffer who did not notice the use of the word “Reich” before posting.

She said Trump, who is facing a criminal trial in New York over a hush money payment to a porn star, was in court at the time. He did not answer a question about the video shouted by a reporter as he headed into court on Tuesday.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The text in the video appears to have been copied from a Wikipedia page about World War I and refers in part to developments long preceding Hitler’s rule.

“German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich,” the Wikipedia page reads.

Trump trial nears end

Elsewhere, Trump has opted not to testify in his criminal hush money trial, bringing his defence to a quick conclusion and clearing the way for jurors to begin deliberations next week.

Trump had stoked speculation for weeks about whether he would take the stand to defend himself against charges of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

By testifying, he might have sought to personally convince a panel of 12 jurors and six alternates that his aim was to protect his family from embarrassment, not bury a story about an alleged sexual encounter damaging to his political prospects.

But criminal defendants typically do not testify in their own trials as it exposes them to probing questions from prosecutors.

Trump would have been at risk of perjury if he lied under oath.

In defiant and rambling testimony in a civil fraud trial last year, Trump was reprimanded by the judge and ultimately ordered to pay $US355 million ($532 million) in penalties.

A similar performance in this case could have alienated jurors.

“He could tank his whole case with one outburst,” retired New York judge George Grasso said in an interview last week.

Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying business records.

Outside the courtroom, he has repeatedly criticised the judge overseeing the case as corrupt, and said prosecutors were trying to hurt his effort to win back the White House.

Justice Juan Merchan said jurors would return next Tuesday, following a long weekend in the US, to hear closing arguments. Deliberations are likely to begin the following day.

-AAP