Remember that nifty lil’ first campaign ad Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump released on Monday? Not only does it repeat the Donald’s “greatest hits,” but it also lies about one of its major points. In the advertisement’s final chunk about immigration, the narrator claims Trump will “stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for.” When “southern border” hits, this cues footage of people running towards a border fence of some kind.
The thing is, this footage wasn’t taken from Mexico. According to PolitiFact, it was actually taken from Morocco in northern Africa.
PolitiFact was able to trace the footage back to the Italian television network RepubblicaTV. On May 3, 2014, the network posted footage of Moroccans crossing the border into Melilla, one of two enclaves on the Moroccan coast that are held by Spain. Migrants who cross the border there are essentially entering territory held by a European Union nation, even though they are still on the African continent.
Soon after the ad was fact-checked, the Trump campaign released a statement admitting that the footage wasn’t taken on the U.S./Mexico border:
UPDATE: Trump campaign explains why Moroccan migrants shown in ad warning about Mexicans. https://t.co/Nhts9HnVN3 pic.twitter.com/2t2n3MMf8C
— Alan Rappeport (@arappeport) January 4, 2016
Meanwhile, a Trump campaign manager named Corey Lewandowski relayed the statement’s message to NBC News with more… force:
TRUMP CAMPAIGN MNGR: "No shit its not the Mexican border but thats what our country is going to look like if we don't do anything."
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) January 4, 2016
Luckily for us lay-folks, the media’s army of Twitter users (and a few jokers here and there) decided to offer the Trump campaign a few alternative bits of border footage to use in future ads. These included everything from The Lord of the Rings:
https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/684110658808492033
To Jurassic Park:
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/684113111381585920
Even the problematic World War Z was able to make an appearance:
https://twitter.com/RexHuppke/status/684128599209865217
As did former Miss South Carolina Teen USA and Miss Teen USA winner, Caitlin Upton:
https://twitter.com/dellakwal/status/684128878667890688
If this ad doesn’t make Trump’s campaign explode all over these 48 great continental United States of America, I don’t know what will! At least the people of Morocco will know the Donald’s name now.
(Via PolitiFact)