Ad Watch: One of Donald Trump’s closing ads uses deceptively edited news stories to mislead

When campaigns include on-screen citations in campaign ads, it’s intended to validate the arguments with reliable, nonpartisan sources.

But in a closing ad from former President Donald Trump, on-screen quotes are deceptively edited to distort what the source material said. 

The ad criticizes the economy under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and argues that Americans were better off under Trump’s leadership.

Here’s a rundown of the ad’s questionable quotes.

“The New York Times: ‘Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes,’ August 22, 2024”

This snips out the rest of the sentence, which explains that Harris’ tax increase would be only for the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

The Times article cited said, “No one making less than $400,000 a year would see their taxes go up under (Harris’) plan. Instead, Ms. Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.”

This is a common misdirection by Trump. In mid-October, he said Harris “will raise taxes for the typical American family by an estimated $3,000.” We rated this False. That would only be the case if Harris allows all of Trump’s 2017 tax law to expire; in reality, she would keep the law for Americans earning less than $400,000 annually. 

“CBS News: ‘Harris vows to keep Biden’s border,’ September 28, 2024”

Appearing to assign blame to Harris for high levels of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, this snips out a key part of the quotation: the word “crackdown.”

The headline of this CBS News article is: “Harris vows to keep Biden’s border crackdown: ‘The United States is a sovereign nation.’” 

The story’s opening paragraph reads, “During a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris vowed to keep President Biden’s asylum crackdown in place if elected, solidifying Democrats’ embrace of more stringent immigration rules.”

“NBC News: ‘Welfare for illegals,’ March 28, 2018”

When this headline is on the screen, the ad’s narrator refers to “giving welfare to illegals while Americans struggle.”

However, this cites an opinion article that’s more than six years old. That article had nothing to do with Biden or Harris, who weren’t president and vice president yet, and it addressed the question of occupational licenses for people covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which temporarily blocks deportation for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and meet certain qualifications.

“Regardless of one’s position on welfare for illegal immigrants,” the article says, “a license is clearly different from food stamps and other government safety nets.”

“NBC News: ‘Economic Worries Persist,’ October 10, 2024”

When this quote appears on the screen, the narrator says, “It’s time to turn the page on Joe and Kamala’s failed agenda.”

This appears to refer to the caption on an NBC News Facebook post promoting an Oct. 10 article that ran that day on NBC News’s website; the Facebook caption says, “Inflation is down from pandemic highs, but economic worries persist.” 

However, the article itself gives a more positive impression than Trump’s ad indicates; the NBC News story that’s linked to the Facebook post is headlined, “Inflation cools to lowest level since February 2021.” 

The article says that just-released inflation data, “while a bit hotter than expected, points to an economy experiencing cooler inflation even as the job market remains sturdy and interest rates ease” — a positive take on the recent economic news.

The same article also says, “Trump has not offered a detailed economic plan besides proposing a blanket set of tariffs of up to 20% that he says would boost jobs and raise revenues — outcomes many economists have disputed.”

“USA Today: ‘Lower prices,’ August 31, 2024”

As this appears on-screen, the narrator says that “prices were lower” under Trump.

It’s true that inflation was lower under Trump than during much of Biden’s presidency, but the quote cited in the ad doesn’t refer to prices during Trump’s presidency. 

The Trump campaign told us this referred to a video of Trump that USA Today posted Aug. 15. The video’s headline says, “‘Drill, baby, drill’: Trump claims more US oil production will lower prices on everything.” This is a prediction that Trump himself was making in the video, which consists only of him speaking, not something the newspaper wrote about prices while Trump was president.