Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's first television campaign commercial falsely portrays a Moroccan border as the one between Mexico and the US -- but his camp insists that was done intentionally.
"No sh*t it's not the Mexican border but that's what our country is going to look like," campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told NBC News on Monday. "This was 1,000 percent on purpose."
The ad, which is slated to air in early-primary states Iowa and New Hampshire, features footage aired on Italian television in 2014 of Moroccan immigrants entering Melilla, a Spanish enclave. But the narration repeats the candidate's claim that he will "stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for."
According to Politifact, another spokesperson for Trump's campaign, identified as Hope Hicks, originally said that she did not know the source of the footage and would not speak for the company that produced the video. The logo for RepubblicaTV, the network where it originally aired, cannot be seen in the video.
The commercial also fails to mention that increased immigration law enforcement and economic conditions within the US have led to more immigrants leaving the country than there are coming in.
The ad, as released on Monday, can be seen below.
