Donald Trump on Tuesday released a new 30-second ad, which the campaign says will run “nationally on cable and select broadcast programming.” It’s filled with positive images of Trump the builder, Trump the businessman — “dreaming big, building bigger” — and Trump bringing people together across America in a new political movement.
It’s one uplifting image after another. Except near the end of the ad, when the announcer says “United for family, jobs, country; defined by freedom; standing together; pushing ahead; leaving the past behind.” When the words “leaving the past behind” are spoken, the screen is filled with a shot from Bill and Hillary Clinton’s famous, or infamous, appearance on “60 Minutes” in January 1992. That was the interview in which candidate Bill Clinton confessed to “causing pain in my marriage” but lied about his relationship with Gennifer Flowers, which at the time was threatening to sink his presidential campaign. (Clinton did not admit his affair with Flowers until his 1998 under-oath deposition in the Paula Jones case.)
The shot is less than two seconds long. Some viewers will miss it altogether. But it is memorable for anyone who remembers the original Clinton scandals. In other words, it’s not an appeal to millennials, but it’s a message from the Trump campaign that Clinton scandals, no matter how old, are still fair game.
