Trump campaign sues TV station over ad critical of his coronavirus response

Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. filed a lawsuit on Monday against a Wisconsin TV station for airing an attack ad that uses “manipulated audio,” according to the Trump campaign.

The campaign said in a press release it is suing WJFW-NBC in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, for an ad “that contained intentionally false and defamatory statements about President Trump.” The ad also “used digitally manipulated clips of President Trump’s voice to fabricate unsubstantiated meaning in the President’s word,” according to the campaign.

“It is disappointing that WJFW-NBC would knowingly continue to broadcast this blatantly false ad and perpetrate falsehoods on the American people, even after the Trump campaign provided proof in good faith of the ad’s falsity,” Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to Trump for President, said in the release. “We fully expected the station would recognize their error and immediately cease under their FCC obligations. The Trump campaign is now left with no other option than to use the force of law to ensure these false and defamatory ads cease.”

Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC that produced the ad, uses soundbites from President Trump where he allegedly downplayed threats presented by the coronavirus by calling it a ‘hoax,’ according to The Associated Press.

The lawsuit follows a cease-and-desist order the campaign sent to all TV stations running the ad, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.

The Trump Campaign claims the ad spliced clips of the president together in a misleading way, AP reported. The campaign says Trump did not call the virus itself a hoax, but that he was referring to the politicization of the pandemic by Democrats, according to the campaign’s press release.

The ad also shows a clip of Trump from February claiming the total number of coronavirus cases in the United States was decreasing, saying “within a couple of days is going to be down close to zero,” according to WPR. Priorities USA expanded the ad’s reach with a $600,000 ad-buy in Arizona after the campaign issued the cease-and-desist order, WPR reported.

“This is pretty simple. Donald Trump doesn’t want voters to hear the truth, and he’s trying to bully TV stations into submission, Guy Cecil, Priorities USA chairman, said in a release obtained by AP. “We will never stop airing the facts and holding the president accountable for his actions.”

WJFW-NBC “declined to comment” when reached by the AP.