CNN anchor John King praised the Trump campaign’s digital strategy during his show on Wednesday.
Beginning the segment by pointing out the president’s reelection campaign has spent significantly more money on digital ads than any of his potential 2020 Democratic opponents, King highlighted the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee’s spending around specific events.
King noted that on Oct. 5, days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment investigation into the president, the president’s reelection campaign spent $2.8 million on Facebook and Google ads. King also pointed out that slightly more than $20,000 were spent on impeachment-related ads. However, the campaign spent just under $2 million on ads related to impeachment since the whistleblower came forward.
“So, the campaign realizing we have a problem, we have an issue. Let’s use our resources in the digital space to try to shape the debate with big ads like this,” King stated. “Whatever you think at home about the president, whether you’re for him or against him or not sure about it, as reporters as you study campaigns, they know what they’re doing. They have a very smart digital strategy.”
“The way they spike it to deal with issues, they did this in the past on immigration has come up, when you see that $20,000 pre-whistleblower, $2 million post-whistleblower. They see a fire, and they go after it,” he continued.
CNN congressional correspondent Phil Mattingly added, “We saw it in 2016. I think most people weren’t totally aware of what was actually happening in 2016 until after the fact, when you got a full sense on not just how good they were at operating on Facebook … they were doing things that nobody had really thought of doing in terms of creative, in terms of how many thing things they were throwing out all at once, and it was very, very effective, and it was at a scale nobody had ever seen.”
King then showed a clip of Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale urging people at Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rally to sign up and give the campaign their information in Florida on Tuesday night.
