President Trump’s allies are targeting the next Democratic debate for a TV and online advertising barrage celebrating the president’s role in killing Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, as his campaign looks to capitalize on the successful counterterrorism operation.
The Committee to Defend the President, a Trump-aligned super PAC, is putting together a 30-second spot based on the mission. It is slated to run digitally and on cable news networks in several key media markets during the Nov. 20 debate.
“The successful al Baghdadi raid is just further proof that President Trump is keeping America safe and winning the War on Terror,” said Ted Harvey, chairman of the committee. “After years of President Obama’s failed leadership, the U.S. military is stronger than ever, and America has never been more secure.”
The Nevada Republican Party is selling T-shirts featuring the dog who chased down Baghdadi, while the Trump campaign has already launched Facebook ads and delivered fundraising emails centered on “the fierce leadership of our commander-in-chief.”
[Related: ‘A beautiful dog’: Trump wants heroic Belgian Malinois in Baghdadi raid to visit White House]
The messaging could not come at a better time for Trump. Democrats have the president in their sights as they proceed with impeachment proceedings, and even normally reliable Republican allies are sniping at the president for his decision to back away from Kurdish forces in Syria.
Killing Baghdadi was not only the most decisive act so far by Trump as commander in chief, according to Michael Johns, a co-founder of the Tea Party movement, but also a clear demonstration of America First principles for the campaign ahead.
“He’s fulfilled the initial commitment of eliminating the caliphate and ISIS as a fighting force generally throughout Syria and Iraq, yet unlike prior presidents is not committed to some prolonged occupation in the region that puts American forces at risk and has a questionable relationship to American interests,” he said. “It is an affirming development in its decisiveness and its commitment to following through on his campaign promises.”
On Sunday, Trump struck a somber tone as he praised the American service personnel who carried out the raid. But when he finished the scripted announcement of Baghdadi’s death and took questions from journalists at the White House, he used graphic language to describe the operation and reminded the world that he had succeeded where his predecessor had failed.
“Baghdadi has been on the run for many years, long before I took office,” he said. “But, at my direction, as commander in chief of the United States, we obliterated his caliphate, 100%, in March of this year.”
Despite those Trumpian flourishes, the announcement echoed the moment eight years ago when President Barack Obama declared that Osama bin Laden had been killed at his Pakistan hideaway.
Hunting down the world’s most wanted man became a campaign theme a year later. Both Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden, used the high-risk mission to emphasize the coolness of a president prepared to take big decisions, in contrast to Mitt Romney, his challenger in 2012.
“On this gut issue, we know what President Obama did. We can’t say for certain what Gov. Romney would have done,” said Biden, as he suggested a winning campaign bumper sticker would combine the raid with bailing out one of America’s biggest automakers: “Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”
Obama gave an interview in the White House Situation Room to discuss how he made his decision to greenlight the operation. And his campaign released a video of former President Bill Clinton praising his strength in ordering it.
But the political boost to his presidency was brief. His approval rating went up in the immediate aftermath of the raid but soon returned to its previous level.
We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi! pic.twitter.com/PDMx9nZWvw
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 28, 2019
Nevertheless, Trump has wasted no time in hammering home the message that he killed Islamists’ current highest-profile bad guy. On Monday, he posted to Twitter a photograph of the dog that chased Baghdadi, and he brought up the raid during a speech to police chiefs in Chicago.
“He’s dead, he’s dead as a doornail,” he said. “He should have been killed years ago. Another president should have gotten him.”
But the approach carries risks that he could be accused of politicizing the work of brave American soldiers, just as Obama was accused in 2012.
For now, his campaign will not comment on whether it plans to sell merchandise based on the raid, but communications director Tim Murtaugh said it was enough to know the world was a safer place.
“It took 10 minutes for the news media to pivot to reassuring each other that it won’t boost Trump,” he tweeted Sunday. “Today is a great day. It’s OK to be happy about it, folks.”
