President Trump on Monday defended an anti-immigrant ad that critics called racist after several television networks said they would not run it, calling it “effective” and telling reporters their questions were “offensive.”
“They certainly are effective,” Trump told reporters as he was about to board Air Force One en route to another MAGA rally.
Asked about charges that the ad — which several networks have either refused to air or decided to stop running — was offensive, the president went on the offensive himself.
“A lot of things are offensive. Your questions are offensive a lot of the time,” he said.
Fox News, Fox Business and NBC said earlier Monday they would stop airing the ad, which was widely condemned as racist after NBC ran it during an NFL “Sunday Night Football” game.
“Upon further review, Fox News pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network,” said ad sales president Marianne Gambelli in a statement to reporters issued shortly after NBC made a similar announcement.
“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,” an NBC spokesperson said in a statement to CNN, which has declined to run the ad at all.
“Sunday Night Football” — already a ratings hit — likely drew a bigger than usual audience because the game featured the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots and their star quarterbacks, Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady.
CNN had earlier declined to run the ad, deeming it racist.
The ad was part of Team Trump’s campaign to demonize immigrants as the pivotal midterms approach to fire up the president’s nativist, “America First” base.
The ad paints a doomsday scenario in which an “invasion” of a few thousand Central America asylum seekers — many of them women and children traveling in a series of caravans — supposedly posed a dire threat to American democracy.
The ad also featured Luis Bracamontes, an illegal immigrant convicted of murdering two sheriff’s deputies in 2014, falsely claiming that Democrats “let him into our country.”
In fact, he was deported and last sneaked in when George W. Bush was president, and he was detained but released by former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a Trump favorite who later won a presidential pardon.
After it aired, people flocked to Twitter to condemn the network for taking money to air the ad.
“So @nbc and @Comcast aired that racist Trump caravan commercial during the football game. Who made that decision? How did they decide it was ok? I am disgusted that you would air that after @cnn refused to air it because it is explicitly racist. Shame on you. @NBCNews,” wrote filmmaker and comic Judd Apatow in a typical post.
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