Fact check: How Trump’s TV ads deceive viewers with misleadingly edited quotes

By Daniel Dale, CNN

Washington (CNN) — Former President Donald Trump’s late-campaign television ads are littered with deceptively edited and misleadingly described quotations.

Multiple Trump ads omit critical words from quotes by and about Vice President Kamala Harris on the subject of tax policy. One Trump ad misleadingly depicts comments about fracking from Trump’s campaign and administration as if they were comments from independent news organizations.

Another Trump ad takes an immigration-related quote from a 6-year-old news article way out of context, wrongly depicting it as a comment about the Biden-Harris administration. Another ad changes a word from the headline of an economic news story. And another ad wrongly describes a quote from the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Asked for comment on CNN’s findings, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt chose not to defend any of the specifics. Instead, she said Friday: “President Trump has the hardest-hitting, most well produced ads in the business.” She credited them for damaging Harris’ campaign.

All of the ads discussed in this article are among the 20 most-aired ads from Trump and his outside allies in the last two weeks, according to data provided by AdImpact. Here is a fact check.

Tactic: Cutting out key words

One Trump ad deletes critical words from two separate quotes on Harris’ tax policies.

The ad twice shows a video clip of Harris saying this: “Taxes are gonna have to go up.” But the ad removes key words from the beginning and end of her sentence.

What Harris actually said — at an event in 2019, during her previous presidential campaign — was that “estate taxes are gonna have to go up for the richest Americans.”

The same ad also features the following on-screen text the ad attributed to an article in The New York Times: “Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes.” But as the Times itself has noted, this, too, is a misleading snip. What the Times article actually said was this: “Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.”

At least two other Trump ads employ similar deception on the same topic.
Those ads feature on-screen text saying “Harris would raise taxes,” attributing those words to a CBS News article. But that CBS News article actually said this: “To pay for her plan, Harris would raise taxes on high-income earners.”

Tactic: Depicting claims from the Trump camp as statements from news entities

One Trump ad, attacking Harris over her past support for a ban on fracking (which she now says she no longer supports), shows the logo of the Reuters news agency beside the words “KAMALA’S SCHEME: ‘KILL JOBS,’” making it seem like that was something Reuters had declared. But the Reuters article the ad cites in small print actually used the phrase “kill jobs” only in reporting a claim from Trump’s own 2020 campaign.

The article – which was about comments made by Joe Biden, not Harris – said: “The Trump campaign had already pounced on his remarks, saying they were evidence that Biden’s energy stance would kill jobs in states like Pennsylvania.”

The same ad features the words “KAMALA’S SCHEME: ‘RAISE GAS PRICES,’” attributing them to a 2021 article in the environmental and energy publication E&E News. But that 2021 article used the phrase “raise gas prices” only in describing a claim from the Trump administration. The article said that, in a report released days before Trump left office, “outgoing Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said a fracking ban would cost millions of jobs, raise gas prices at the pump and cause electricity bills to spike.”

Tactic: Citing a ‘source’ that is unrelated to the ad’s claims

A Trump ad criticizing the record of the Biden-Harris administration says, “Their weakness invited wars. Welfare for illegals.” The ad flashes on-screen text that says “welfare for illegal immigrants” and attributes those words to an NBC News article from 2018.

But that NBC News article did not even mention Biden or Harris, whose administration did not begin until 2021. And the article used the phrase “welfare for illegal immigrants” only in passing – in a totally different context than the Trump ad uses it.

The article criticized occupational licensing rules that were preventing immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program from working in certain jobs. It said: “It’s a complete travesty that otherwise qualified individuals can’t get the government’s permission to cut hair. Regardless of one’s position on welfare for illegal immigrants, a license is clearly different from food stamps and other government safety nets.”

Tactic: Making a quote more dramatic

One Trump ad has on-screen text saying, “Massive Layoffs Hit Michigan.” The ad, criticizing Harris for her support for electric vehicles, attributes those words to a March 28 article in Newsweek.

But that Newsweek article actually referred not to “massive” layoffs but to “mass” layoffs, at least a slightly less dramatic word; it was talking about layoffs totaling under 1,400 people at two auto plants. And the ad didn’t mention the number of people employed in auto manufacturing in Michigan has increased by about 15% under the Biden-Harris administration; it is now at its highest level since 2007, though the number of people employed in auto parts manufacturing in the state has fallen about 6%.

Tactic: Wrongly describing a quote

One Trump ad features a narrator saying the “Biden-Harris administration just admitted that they released thousands of illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes.” A quote shown on the screen, from the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), appears to support the claim; the text says, “Released Illegal Immigrants: ‘435,719 ARE CONVICTED CRIMINALS.’”

But as CNN and others have noted, this ICE letter did not say that all of these immigrants with criminal convictions were released under the Biden-Harris administration. The data is about people who entered the country over the course of decades, including during Trump’s own administration, and the letter did not offer any administration-by-administration breakdown.

The ICE letter also did not say all of these people were “released” – many are still in prisons and jails serving their criminal sentences – or that they are all “illegal immigrants.” The list includes both people who entered the country illegally and people who entered legally and then committed crimes.

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