‘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…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) CNN sent a cease-and-desist letter to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign over a “deceptive” ad that they claimed misrepresents the network, according to CNN’s lawyers.
The Trump campaign released the ad, titled “American Comeback,” on Sunday, and it shows CNN’s medical expert Sanjay Gupta crediting Trump’s ban on travel to and from China amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Although few astute viewers were likely to think CNN had actually credited Trump with anything positive related to the pandemic, the network accused the campaign of taking Gupta’s words out of context and portraying them in a “false, misleading, and deceptive” manner.
Gupta wasn’t actually “crediting the president’s travel ban policy,” CNN’s lawyers said in the letter.
Instead, he was “discussing recently implemented social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders issued by state and local governments,” they noted.
“CNN hereby demands that you discontinue airing the advertisement with the CNN clip that has been distorted in such a way as to mislead the public,” Rick McMurtry, associate general counsel for WarnerMedia, which owns CNN, wrote in a letter to Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director.
Murtaugh, however, said that a conversation about social-distancing and its effectiveness inherently includes discussion about Trump’s travel restrictions.
“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. Based on that alone, the ad is accurate,” Murtaugh told CNN Business.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale also blasted the network for rejecting the Trump team’s ad while gladly accepting “any bogus Dem ad.”
CNN hack @brianstelter had a story pre-written & gave us 7 minutes to respond before posting.@CNN rejected another accurate Trump ad because they’re stooges for Dems but they’ll run any bogus Dem ad.
Drop the “news” veil already & just declare yourselves a SuperPAC for Biden. pic.twitter.com/vEZXoZLoSw
— Brad Parscale – Download our Trump 2020 App today! (@parscale) May 5, 2020