CNN is demanding that the Trump campaign pull a recent ad that used the network’s footage in a way its parent company, WarnerMedia, deemed “false, misleading, and deceptive.”
The ad, titled “American Comeback,” was introduced on Sunday night and lavishes praise upon President Trump for his response to the coronavirus pandemic. It includes a snippet of a segment from The Situation Room involving Wolf Blitzer and the network’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, from March 30.
In the ad, Blitzer asks Gupta, “Is it accurate that if these steps had not been put in place … it could have been 2 million people dead here in the United States?” Gupta then can be heard answering affirmatively while the screen progressed to promote the president’s travel ban from China as a crucial move in the fight to contain the virus.
Under @realDonaldTrump the United States is writing the greatest comeback story ever seen.
The unyielding resolve of the American people will carry us through.
And with President Trump, we will #MakeAmericaGreatAgain.
New inspirational @TeamTrump ad: pic.twitter.com/WlRoKqnPeT
— Brad Parscale – Download our Trump 2020 App today! (@parscale) May 3, 2020
However, the ad omitted a part of Blitzer’s question, which the network took exception with. The question in its entirety was, “Well, is it accurate that if these steps had not been put in place, the stay-at-home orders, the social distancing orders, as the president said yesterday, it could have been 2 million people dead here in the United States?”
Gupta’s answer was also cut short as his entire response was, “I mean, you know, these are all models, Wolf. It’s a little tough to say, but, you know, if you talk about something that is spreading, you know, very robustly throughout a community, you know, two to three times more contagious than flu, and up to 10 times, perhaps even more than that, more deadly than flu, then yes.”
Rick D. McMurtry, associate general counsel for WarnerMedia, sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Trump campaign on Monday, the network reported. In it, McMurtry argued that the clip inaccurately depicted the two network personalities as crediting the president’s travel ban as a major reason the death toll was not higher, rather than social distancing guidelines and the stay-at-home orders in most states.
“The advertisement purposely and deceptively edits the clip to imply that Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were crediting the President’s travel ban policy issued in January for saving millions of American lives, when in fact Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were discussing recently implemented social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders issued by state and local governments,” he wrote.
McMurtry also demanded the network stop airing the ad, arguing that the clip from CNN “has been distorted in such a way as to mislead the public,” but the Trump campaign disagreed.
“No discussion of efforts to prevent American deaths from the coronavirus can be had without the understanding that President Trump restricted travel from China in January. Based on that alone, the ad is accurate,” Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director, argued. He also called the network “effectively a Joe Biden Super PAC.”
