Late last week, the Trump campaign released a racist, factually incorrect ad designed to stoke anti-immigrant fear ahead of the midterm elections. Opening with footage from the court appearance of a convicted killer named Luis Bracamontes, the ad shows the undocumented Mexican man bragging that he murdered two police officers, and expressing regret that he was unable to kill more. From there, the ad proceeds to make two false claims: that Democrats let Bracamontes into the country, and that they permitted him to stay – flat out lies have been debunked by credible news outlets.
The ad then follows the Bracamontes footage with scenes from the caravan of Central American asylum seekers who are walking toward the US southern border. The 30-second spot’s message is clear; the asylum seekers are violent, criminal invaders too, it suggests, and Democrats are responsible for letting them into our country.
Despite it’s clear racist rhetoric, the 30-second ad aired on NBC during “Sunday Night Football,” which is primetime TV’s No.1 rated show, reaching an average 20 million viewers. It also ran about a dozen times on Fox News and Fox Business. It was only after a backlash that NBC announced it would be pulling the ad off the air. And in a surprising twist, Fox News – which has a notoriously cozy relationship with the Trump administration – followed suit. “Upon further review, Fox News pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network,” ad sales president Marianne Gambelli told CNN in a statement.
The last company to pull the ad from its platform was Facebook, which announced on Monday afternoon that “this ad violates Facebook’s advertising policy against sensational content so we are rejecting it. While the video is allowed to be posted on Facebook, it cannot receive paid distribution.”
We’ve got to say, when Fox News, home of Tucker “What do you think, you own tacos now?” Carlson admits that an ad is too racist for them to air, you know it’s on a whole other level.