Kevin McCarthy debuts new ad praising Trump's election prowess. It uses Russian stock footage.

Russia seems to loom over just about everything election-related these days.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) unveiled a new ad Monday defending President Trump as he remains the subject of an impeachment investigation and the 2020 general election draws ever closer.

McCarthy's ad portrays Trump as someone who has shown the ability to get elected and achieve results in office, despite having many people try to upend him.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

One criticism Trump hears from his opponents is that he's either willingly or unwittingly a pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government is widely believed to have interfered in the 2016 presidential election. It's likely to come up more often as the election approaches, and with that in mind, some eagle-eyed observers, like CNN's Andrew Kaczynski, spotted stock footage in the McCarthy ad that seems to have been shot in Russia. The congressman's team may designate someone to check the location of images going forward. Tim O'Donnell