Donald Trump's first TV ad released Monday misses the mark by nearly 6,000 miles. While the footage that appears when the narrator is talking about the Republican presidential candidate's plans to "stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for" seems like it would be of the U.S.-Mexico border, in actuality, it depicts Morocco's border instead:
Politifact traced the images to an Italian television network, Repubblica TV, which posted the video on May 3, 2014. About 800 migrants tried to cross the Moroccan border on May 1, according to the network.The network's logo and the 2014 timestamp were erased from the footage in Trump's ad. [The Hill]
Rather than admitting an error, Trump's campaign manager instead played the footage's use off as intentional. "No shit it's not the Mexican border," Trump's manager allegedly said, "but that's what our country is going to look like if we don't do anything."
Trump's campaign has also since released a statement saying the choice of this footage was "intentional and selected to demonstrate the severe impact of an open border."
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