A $2 million ad buy launched Wednesday by the National Rifle Association’s political arm features a survivor of the 2012 Benghazi terror attack urging Americans to vote for Donald Trump.
The new ad, developed by the NRA Political Victory Fund, is the first to explicitly promote Trump since he became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and was endorsed by the group last month.
Marine Corps veteran Mark Geist tells voters in the 30-second ad to do their part by supporting Trump over Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in November. Geist belonged to the security team that helped rescue Americans in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.
“Hillary as president? No thanks. I served in Benghazi. My friends didn’t make it. They did their part. Do yours,” he says.
The ad is set to air on broadcast channels in a half dozen battleground states, including Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Colorado. It comes 24 hours after Republican members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi released their final report on the 2012 terror attack, revealing massive bureaucratic failures and deliberate attempts by senior Obama administration officials to misrepresent facts surrounding the attack.
With the exception of the pro-Trump Great America political action committee, which launched a million-dollar ad buy during the GOP primary, few other outside groups besides the NRA have moved to support Trump on the airwaves in the general election. A report released Tuesday by NBC News found that Clinton and her allies have outspent Trump $26 million to $0 in the month of June.
The NRA reportedly spent over $10 million to oust President Obama in the 2012 presidential race and could shell out just as much, if not more, this cycle.
“The stakes in this election for law-abiding gun owners have never been higher, and the NRA will use all available resources to ensure that voters understand the consequences of a Hillary Clinton presidency on their fundamental right of self-defense,” Chris Cox, executive director of the group’s lobbying and political arm, said in a statement.
