On Monday, the Trump campaign released a brutal ad depicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as a Marie Antoinette-like figure for boasting about her private ice cream stash as Americans suffer from the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Last week, Pelosi made an appearance on James Corden’s “Late Late Show” where she displayed her $24,000 refrigerator filled to the brim with top-quality ice cream, presumably from a local business. President Donald Trump responded with an ad like no other. Take a look:
Americans are losing their jobs since the virus rocked the economy.
Nancy Pelosi blocks funding for people to keep getting paychecks.
But she’s got a $24K fridge full of ice cream, so she’s cool.
“𝑳𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎.”
– 𝑵𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒚 𝑨𝒏𝒕𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆 pic.twitter.com/6KDurMFJDD— Brad Parscale (@parscale) April 20, 2020
Though her co-hosts disagreed, Meghan McCain of “The View” deemed the ad a “kill shot” due to the horribly bad optics of Pelosi laughing and eating ice cream while Americans suffer through economic hardships.
“This ad is an absolute savage blow and an example what I was trying to explain today regarding having empathy for the protesters and people living in fear of how they will feed their family and keep the lights on,” McCain tweeted on Monday night.
On Tuesday, McCain’s co-hosts challenged the depiction of Pelosi by pointing out the ice cream came from a small business while suggesting the format of a late-night show was not the best place to advertise her ice cream stash.
“They’re traps,” Joy Behar said of comedy shows. “They get you to say things there because you feel you’re being funny. Leave it to the professionals and don’t go on comedy shows. Come on our show.”
“OK, it doesn’t look good maybe, she’s got an expensive refrigerator,” she added. “Let’s go to Trump Tower and see what kind of refrigerator he has.”
Meghan McCain doubled-down on her tweet from Monday night, arguing that the optics were just too bad to ignore.
“It’s not the ice cream that’s in her fridge, it’s the fact that she’s standing behind giant refrigerators, multiple ones that cost $24,000 each,” McCain said, as reported by The Daily Beast. “And you’re right, Joy, politicians are wealthy, Trump is wealthy, but I think in this specific moment, optics are narratives. I don’t make the rules of politics, this is just how it works.”
“Trust me when I say this, it will play very well in the middle of the country,” she added.
Co-host Sunny Hostin agreed with Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg that the ad was “manufactured Fox News outrage.”
“They’re talking about ‘but her freezer, but her freezer!’ I’m really worried about the bodies that I saw being put into freezers in New York. That’s what I’m worried about,” asserted Hostin.
McCain shot back, “I’m not someone who’s susceptible to fear-mongering at all. And I used to work at Fox News so I think the idea that I’m, like, fear-mongering in this way, I’m not. This isn’t manufacturing outrage. I too am scared and worried about the body bags in refrigerators in New York City. Of course I am.”
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