President Biden’s campaign launched race-baiting attack ads against former President Donald Trump in New York on Thursday — depicting the presumptive Republican nominee as anti-black ahead of his rally in the Bronx.
Trump’s campaign stop in the borough — which is historically deep blue — will be an opportunity for the former commander-in-chief to court black and Hispanic voters, who make up a large percentage of the New York borough.
Biden’s campaign swiftly went on the offensive, launching a TV and radio blitz ahead of the 6 p.m. rally in Crotona Park — highlighting the former president’s comments about the “Central Park Five” case in which five black teenagers were wrongly convicted of beating and raping a woman in the New York greenspace.
The TV ad, titled “Contempt,” shows a clip of Trump’s 1989 interview with Larry King, where the real estate mogul says of the teens, “of course I hate these people.”
Trump also took out full-page ads in several Big Apple newspapers at the time that said, “Bring Back The Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!”
Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated “Central Park Five” and a current New York City councilman, also provided a written statement for the Biden campaign’s blitz.
“Today, we point our fingers back at Mr. Trump and stand firmly against him and his campaign for office. Throughout my wrongful conviction, the one thing I would not allow to be taken away from me was my voice,” Salaam said.
“I urge Black and brown communities across the country: do not sit this election out. Our voices are powerful, our votes are crucial. We must come together to ensure that a man like Donald Trump never steps foot in the White House again. Our future, our children’s future, and the very soul of our nation depend on it.”
The ad also claims Trump discriminated against black families in the 1970s, “stood with violent white supremacists” in Charlottesville, and vows to be a “dictator” if he gets back into office.
The 30-second ad will be targeted in Bronx and New York zip codes, and will also air in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pa., Atlanta and Macon, Ga., Milwaukee, Wis., and Detroit, Mich.
The attack campaign also comes as Trump has been polling exceptionally well with black and Hispanic voters.
Support for the former president is as high as 23% among black voters, according to a recent poll — the highest percent of support for a Republican candidate since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Meanwhile, Biden’s team is also targeting black voters in swing states with a 60-second radio ad portraying a black Trump canvasser changing his mind to vote for Biden after being presented with Trump’s history with black Americans.
Trump’s campaign claimed the attack ads from Biden’s team were coming out due to them “panicking” about the president hemorrhaging support among black voters.
“This ad is another cheap attempt from the Biden campaign to gaslight Black voters and fails to address Biden’s terrible policies that are hurting our community. The Biden campaign is panicking because they see that Black voters aren’t buying what Biden is selling, and President Trump is receiving a record high support in the polls from Black voters that we haven’t seen in decades,” Janiyah Thomas, Trump’s black media director, said in a statement.
“We must not forget that it was Joe Biden who was a key figure in passing the 1994 Crime Bill, which disproportionately harmed Black communities through harsh sentencing laws and increased incarceration rates,” the statement continued.
“Additionally, we cannot overlook that Biden’s policies are driving Black families deeper into poverty and making them less safe. Black voters, like all Americans, are worse-off now than they were under President Trump and every poll reflects that reality. The bottom line is Black voters are abandoning Biden and moving towards President Trump, and every single public measure of support indicates that.”
The Trump campaign also pointed to Biden’s history of racist remarks, including telling a black voter “you ain’t black” if you don’t vote for him over Trump.
