A new pro-Donald Trump ad says the country has “gone to hell” under the Biden-Harris administration — alongside violent imagery during his own presidency.
In a new two-minute ad, the former president narrates how the US has allegedly deteriorated — and the ad tried to illustrate this by using footage taken during the 2020 protests after the murder of George Floyd.
A brief clip in the attack ad shows someone wearing a black Rolling Stones sweatshirt while holding a gun at a Seattle protest in May 2020. A photo of the individual was first featured in a KPIC article titled: “After day of fiery protests, uneasy calm in Seattle” and came amid widespread anger over the police brutality case.
But aside from being a snapshot of protests that happened while Trump was running the country, the footage fails to match up with the narration in the video.
The Rolling Stone gunman is included in a montage of clips preceded with text warning ‘Illegal immigration rose by all-time record numbers”, referring to Trump’s criticism of the Biden-Harris presidency.
However, the Floyd protests have nothing to do with illegal immigration, instead being sparked by Americans angry over domestic police violence and racism.
When asked about the 2020 footage, the Trump campaign told the outlet: “The riot imagery shows the same radical leftists that embrace the chaos in Kamala’s broken world view. President Trump will fix our cities, make the nation safe, and stand up to those whose ideology says this abhorrent action is OK.”
The Independent has reached out to a Trump campaign spokesperson for comment.
When protests erupted across the country in the wake of Floyd’s death, Trump threatened to deploy US military troops to various cities.
Mark Esper, Trump’s former defense secretary, told NPR in 2022 that during this turbulent period, the then-president asked then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley about whether the military could shoot at protesters — American citizens: “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?” Esper added: “It was a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue just hung very heavily in the air.”
At another point in office, Trump said he “needed the kind of generals that Hitler had,” according to recent reporting from The Atlantic. Last week, Trump denied ever saying this.
Still, in the ad, Trump vows to “make America safe again” if he takes back the White House.
In the ad, Trump also claims that under his term, “we developed the greatest economy in history” compared to Biden’s term, when “inflation destroyed the lives of so many people” and millions crossed the border illegally.
The ad then cuts to Kid Rock’s song “Never Quit” while showing footage of the first assassination attempt against Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally on July 13.
It then shows a clip of UFC President and CEO Dana White speaking at the Republican National Convention, which happened days after the shooting: “Trump is literally putting his life on the line for something bigger than himself and he’s willing to risk it all because he loves this country.”
In the ad, the Republican nominee’s campaign promises to make America “strong,” “secure,” “safe,” “free,” “affordable,” and “great” again under a second Trump term.
