Last week, President Donald Trump‘s reelection campaign was criticized for releasing a political ad ahead of the midterm elections that, aside from containing numerous falsehoods, made several racially-charged statements about immigration. CNN went so far as to declare “this ad is racist,” adding they “declined” to run it when the Trump campaign “presented [them] with an opportunity to be paid to take a version of this ad.” Yet that didn’t stop NBC, Fox News, and Facebook from running versions of the ad over the weekend.
Cut to Monday when, per the New York Times, all three media companies announced that they would no longer be running the ads after the intense backlash. NBC aired a 30-second version of the video during their Sunday Night Football broadcast but subsequently distanced themselves from it on Monday morning. “After further review we recognize the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible,” read a network statement.
Fox News, meanwhile, decided to pull the ad on Sunday and said as much the following day. “Upon further review,” said Marianne Gambelli, Fox News’s president of ad sales, “[we] pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network.” As for Facebook, where the campaign had deployed the video as a targeted advertisement, they explained it had violated the company’s policy “against sensational content.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump’s reelection campaign manager, Brad Parscale, was none too pleased. “So, @NBCNews @CNN @facebook have chosen to stand with those ILLEGALLY IN THIS COUNTRY. Instead of standing with LEGAL IMMIGRANTS and those that follow our laws,” he tweeted in a manner not unlike his boss. (It’s pretty much the same.)
(Via New York Times)