Cash-strapped Trump campaign spent $1.5 million on Sean Hannity-created ad so bad it only ran on his show: report

According to a report from Punchbowl News, Donald Trump's presidential campaign shelled out $1.5 million for an ad created by Fox News host Sean Hannity that was so bad it only ran on Hannity's show before being consigned to the dustbin of history out of embarrassment.

As Punchbowl reports, the backstory on the ad is revealed in a new book on the Trump campaign from the Wall Street Journal's Michael Bender that states the ad, "Swamp creature," was derisively called the "Hannity ad" by Trump staffers who thought it was awful and "over-the top."

Punchbowl summarizes, "Multiple internal campaign emails referred to the spot simply as 'Hannity.' Another referred to it as the 'Hannity-written' spot. 'POTUS has not yet approved, but Hannity has,' read one email. 'Hannity said this is our best spot yet,' another campaign aide wrote...Inside the campaign, the spot was mocked mercilessly—mostly because of the dramatic, over-the-top language and a message that seemed to value quantity over quality."

The report notes that Trump loved the ad -- but officials in his campaign disliked the fact that it was not only bad, but also the fact that the campaign was bleeding cash at the time and it was a waste of resources.

According to Bender, Trump's campaign "deemed it so useless that they limited it to exactly one show: Hannity. … If Trump and Hannity watched the spot on television -- and were satisfied enough to stop asking about the commercial -- that seemed to be the best result of the ad. The cost of that investment: $1.5 million."

But Hannity denied the report. "The world knows that Sean Hannity supports Donald Trump. But my involvement specifically in the campaign -- no. I was not involved that much. Anybody who said that is full of sh*t," he told Bender.

You can see the ad here.