The backlash against President Trump’s anti-illegal immigration ad linking the approaching caravan with a cop killer has become so severe that CNN refused to air it, later prompting both Fox News and NBC to pull it after airing.
The controversial ad contrasts video of Luis Bracamontes, an illegal immigrant who gunned down two police officers in 2014, with the approaching migrant caravan from Honduras and quotes from someone within that caravan saying they have prior felonies.
As noted by Ben Shapiro, the ad makes a broad point about not properly vetting people who enter the country illegally, a message that critics are overlooking:
Trump’s broader argument in the ad is obvious: we don’t know who is coming into our country. Democrats don’t want to bother to find out; they want to retain catch-and-release policies that allow people to approach our border and then stay in the country illegally. We don’t know who is in the caravan, and that’s the point – there could be criminals in that caravan. Yet some Democrats seem intent on allowing nearly everyone from the caravan in without serious vetting.
President Trump is also not the only person to cite Bracamontes as a cautionary tale about illegal immigration. Here’s what The New York Times said of the story back in 2014:
The case could create a new problem for the Obama administration, as officials weigh steps the president could take after the Nov. 4 elections to expand protections from deportation for immigrants here illegally. Emerging details of the suspect’s history — he gave his second last name in court in Sacramento on Tuesday as Bracamontes, not Bracamonte — show that he crossed the southwest border at least twice in a wave of illegal immigration more than a decade ago, then used several aliases and stayed out of trouble just enough to elude detection as the Obama administration ramped up deportations in recent years and expanded systems to identify foreigners who committed crimes.
The context of the video has been overlooked and has instead been denounced as racist. While CNN refused to give the ad air time, both Fox News and NBC allowed it before eventually pulling it.
According to HuffPo, “NBC on Sunday aired a controversial political ad paid for by President Donald Trump’s campaign during the prime-time commercial breaks for Sunday Night Football.”
“The company was widely lambasted for airing it,” HuffPo continued. “On Monday morning, an NBC Universal spokesperson said the company recognizes ‘the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible.'”
Fox News quickly followed in NBC’s footsteps.
“Upon further review, Fox News pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network,” Marianne Gambelli, Fox News’ president of advertisement sales, told CNN in a statement.
The ad was not submitted to either ABC or CBS, according to sources close with CNN.
On Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. blasted CNN for refusing to run the ad, which prompted the network to respond on Twitter, saying it was “abundantly clear” the ad was racist.
“CNN has made it abundantly clear in its editorial coverage that this ad is racist,” the network said. “When presented with an opportunity to be paid to take a version of this ad, we declined. Those are the facts.”