CNN demands Trump campaign stop running "false" and "deceptive" ad
A lawyer for WarnerMedia, CNN's parent company, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to President Trump's re-election campaign over what it calls "false, misleading and deceptive" use of the network's programming in a nationwide television advertisement launched Sunday.
The Trump ad titled "American comeback" touts the president's response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and features a discussion between CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and host of "The Situation Room" Wolf Blitzer, which aired on March 30.
During the CNN program, Blitzer asked Gupta, "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 down here in the United States?"
Gupta responded, "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."
While Blitzer pressed Gupta about "stay-at-home orders," the Trump ad appears to reference the president's travel restrictions from China, while editing together interview footage. In the campaign's version, Blitzer asks, "Is it accurate that if these steps had not been put in place... it could've been 2 million people dead here in the United States?"
The ad jumps to Gupta, who responds with only, "Yes."
During the spliced exchange, over the words "it could've been 2 million people dead here in the United States," images of airport screens displaying flight cancellations and an Air China plane flash across the screen, likely implying the action taken by the president to ban travel from China at the end of January.
In his letter to Trump campaign's communications director Tim Murtaugh, a WarnerMedia attorney, Rick McMurty, said 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," according to CNN.
The attorney demanded in his letter that the campaign "discontinue airing the advertisement with the CNN clip that has been distorted in such a way as to mislead the public."
According to CNN's account, McMurty noted CNN first requested the campaign to "correct the issue" following its review of advertisement Friday, when submitted to the channel for broadcast. He added CNN would have accepted the advertisement "if the misuse had been corrected," however the campaign "knowingly proceeded with distributing the advertisement as is with the misleading claim."
The newly released advertisement will air nationwide for seven days, according to a Trump campaign spokesperson. The Trump campaign spent just over $2.1 million on the combined digital and cable advertisement buy in all fifty states, plus the District of Columbia, according to Kantar media.
Murtaugh also said in a statement that the ad was accurate.
"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," Murtaugh said. "Based on that alone, the ad is accurate." Gupta and Blitzer were not discussing the travel ban, however.
"More importantly, CNN is once again the only outlet to reject a Trump campaign ad, and has now rejected multiple Trump ads that are demonstrably accurate. This is despite CNN's acceptance of a Democrat Super PAC ad that deceptively edited tape to make it appear that President Trump had called the virus a 'hoax' by electronically creating a sentence he never uttered," Murtaugh continued. "Now CNN is using its own rejection of this latest Trump ad to concoct a bogus news story in its continuing effort to campaign against President Trump."
Last month, Trump's re-election campaign filed a defamation lawsuit against Wisconsin television station WJFW-NBC, after the NBC affiliate ran an advertisement from democratic super PAC Priorities USA Action it said employs misleading clips of the president speaking at a campaign rally.