This Trump campaign ad is extremely confused by his coronavirus response

(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images.)

published 16 April 2020

The Trump campaign is actually not bragging in this campaign ad — at least not as much as it could be.

On Thursday, President Trump's re-election campaign started running a Facebook ad that boasted he's "protecting small businesses and their employees during the coronavirus crisis." It then claims over 17,500 loans had been granted to those small business owners, but then inexplicably understates just how much they received.

Instead of the $350 billion in loans the Paycheck Protection Program doled out until it was drained on Thursday, the Trump ad says he's given out "over $5.4 million to those who need it." $5.4 million divided among 17,500 businesses would only be a little more than $300 for each business, leaving the "over" to do a whole lot of work here. Kathryn Krawczyk

The Week

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.