The Lincoln Project, a Republican-led super PAC, has announced that it will expand its ad buy of "Mourning in America" to the Philadelphia airwaves starting Wednesday.
The ad highlights the tragic result of the mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis and the astounding death rate as a result. When the video was first made, the death rate in the United States was just 60,000 people. This week, however, the country crossed the 90,000 mark and is expected to surpass 100,000 before the end of May.
"We have two diseases in our country: COVID-19 and Trumpism," said the Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson. "Mourning in America is about the devastation both have caused, including more than 1000 dead Philadelphians. While we’ll be waiting on a vaccine for one, we are working tirelessly to cure the other this November."
The ad walks through the early days of the virus in which Trump downplayed the severity of the crisis, saying it was nothing more than the flu and claiming more people die from the flu each year than will die of the coronavirus. The U.S. surpassed the death rate of the flu at the beginning of the month.
It also touches on the economic crash that has come along with the outbreak. As the president and his team tried to reassure markets that the virus was under control, infections increased, the number of deaths increased and the spooked stock markets reacted to the inaction. As businesses closed down to physically distance Americans, jobs were lost, sending the U.S. into another recession with an unemployment rate inches from Great Depression levels.
“In 2016, the Trump campaign kept sending him and members of his family to the Philadelphia suburbs, because they knew that if they could make inroads there, he could win Pennsylvania and win the presidency," said the Lincoln Project's George Conway. "They even sent him to a Wawa in King of Prussia, where he looked dazed and confused but made the Philly nightly news. This year, voters in southeastern Pennsylvania won’t be confused by his antics—and our ad buy will be the first of many to make sure they won’t be."
"Trump bailed out Wall Street, but not Main Street," the ad alleges, pointing to the help Republicans were quick to deliver to the airline industry, cruise ship companies and hospitality like Trump's hotels and clubs. Meanwhile, small businesses like restaurants and shops have been forced to come up with their own survival plan.
"There's mourning in America, and under the leadership of Donald Trump, our country is weaker, and sicker, and poorer," the ad says.
President Donald Trump flew into a fit of rage when he saw the ad run on Fox News, taking to Twitter to complain.
The ad is a take off of Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" ad that advocates were after four years of his administration.
