Earlier this month, CNN refused to air a Trump campaign ad called “Biden Corruption,” in part because, they claimed, the ad made “assertions that have been proven demonstrably false by various news outlets, including CNN.”
On Friday morning, however, Scott Dworkin, the founder of the Democratic Coalition, announced that his organization’s ad on the “Trump Ukraine scandal” was about to air on CNN.
BOOM: Here is our ad on the Trump Ukraine scandal, that is about to air on CNN. Let’s keep the video viral everyone! #ImpeachmentTaskForceRises pic.twitter.com/vg7do9kuIb
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) October 25, 2019
So, CNN made the decision to allow a pro-impeachment advertisement that assumes Trump committed a “clear and unprecedented abuse of power” to air on their network, while highlighting a portion of text from the Trump/Zelenksy phone call transcript where Trump asks for a favor in helping with an ongoing investigation into foreign election interference in 2016—something that is entirely proper and legal. Democrats have hinged their impeachment inquiry on the claim that the favor Trump asked for was for Ukraine to investigate Biden, which anyone who reads the transcript can clearly see was not the case. Despite making “assertions that have been proven demonstrably false,” CNN chose to air this ad.
For reference, here’s the Trump campaign ad that didn’t meet CNN’s standards:
I AM DRAINING THE SWAMP! pic.twitter.com/U7WxKrO6Kx
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2019
“Joe Biden promised Ukraine $1 billion if they fired the prosecutor investigating his son’s company,” the ad says. This, according to CNN, was proven “demonstrably false” even though we have video evidence of this—that was included in the ad!
“CNN spends all day protecting Joe Biden in their programming, so it’s not surprising that they’re shielding him from truthful advertising too, and then talking to other media outlets about it,” Trump 2020 communications director Tim Murtaugh told The Daily Beast when CNN rejected their ad. Now CNN is doubling down on their biased approach to airing political ads by allowing a pro-impeachment ad that falsely implies Trump asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter as a favor.
This is the problem when biased media outlets fancy themselves to be objective fact-checkers that can decide which campaign ads are “truthful” and which ones are “false.”
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