To highlight what they call “chaos” in President Joe Biden’s America, the National Republican Congressional Committee released a 30-second ad depicting violence and unrest in the U.S. It will air on Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network.
But there’s one problem with the spot: it contains video filmed when Donald Trump was president.
According to CNN fact checker Daniel Dale, a montage in the ad includes scenes from 2020 protests in Portland, Oregon and Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“We want to thank House Republicans for highlighting the mess President Biden inherited from his predecessor,” White House spokesman Mike Gwin told CNN.
“Nowhere does the ad offer any indication that the images from 2020 are not from Biden’s presidency,” Dale adds, noting that is “highly misleading.”
An NRCC spokesman, Mike Berg, brushed aside the criticism. Dale explains:
Berg was unapologetic about the ad’s use of images from 2020. In Twitter messages to CNN, he defended the ad by claiming that Democrats “actively supported and encouraged the riots in 2020” and that Biden in particular “actively encouraged the protests.”
But Biden never supported rioting. As CNN repeatedly wrote in 2020, when Trump made similar claims during the presidential campaign, Biden endorsed peaceful protests while condemning property destruction, looting and violence.
