Former President Barack Obama is sending a cease and desist letter to television stations in South Carolina demanding that a Republican-backed, ant-Job Biden attack commercial be taken down.
The super PAC, Committee to Defend the President,’ began airing the ad earlier this week as South Carolina prepares for its Democratic presidential primary on Saturday.
Obama, however, wants it pulled down because it relies on audio and quotes from his 1995 book, ‘Dreams from My Father,’ in a ‘misleading way,’ says a spokeswoman for the former president.
Former President Barack Obama is sending a cease and desist letter to television stations in South Carolina demanding that a Republican-backed, ant-Job Biden attack commercial be taken down.
The commercial was part of a $250,000 campaign in the latest move by Republicans aiming to sink the former vice president’s run for the 2020 presidential election and prevent him from facing off with incumbent President Donald Trump.
The commercial was part of a $250,000 campaign in the latest move by Republicans aiming to sink the former vice president’s run for the 2020 presidential election and prevent him from facing off with incumbent President Donald Trump.
The PAC already aired a similar ads attacking Biden in Nevada on the issue of immigration, designed to catch the attention of Hispanic voters.
The new ad aims at South Carolina’s majority black electorate, which Biden has to win after falling behind in the earlier primaries which have placed his rival Bernie Sanders in the lead for the Democratic nomination.
‘This despicable ad is straight out of the Republican disinformation playbook, and it’s clearly designed to suppress turnout among minority voters in South Carolina by taking President Obama’s voice out of context and twisting his words to mislead viewers,’ Obama spokeswoman Katie Hill said in a written statement to news outlets.
‘In the interest of truth in advertising, we are calling on TV stations to take this ad down and stop playing into the hands of bad actors who seek to sow division and confusion among the electorate.’
In the commercial, Obama’s voice is heard reading a page from the book, against images of Biden and panels that link the former president’s comments to non-related criticisms of his former vice president’s record.
‘Plantation politics. Black people in the worst jobs. The worst housing. Police brutality rampant. But when the so-called black committeemen came around election time, we’d all line up and vote the straight Democratic ticket. Sell our souls for a Christmas turkey,’ Obama is heard saying, reading a page out of the book.
Obama wants a GOP-backed, anti-Biden, attack ad pulled down because it relies on audio and quotes from his 1995 book, ‘Dreams from My Father,’ in a ‘misleading way,’ says a spokeswoman for the former president.
The passage recalls a barber’s memory of what it was like for black people in Chicago before the election of its first African American Mayor in 1983.
The quote is taken out of context to suggest Biden ‘joined segregationists,’ when he sought support from the Senate’s most fervent segregationists in his fight against busing to desegregate US schools.
The ad also proclaims Biden wrote a bill when he was a senator ‘that disproportionately jailed African Americans,’ in a reference to his role in passed legislation in the 1980s and 1990s that experts say lead to the mass incarceration of black people in black communities across the country.
Lastly, the ad mentions that Biden ‘blamed African American parents for inequality,’ connecting the book’s comments to his response to a question asked during the third Democratic debate.
The page from the 1995 book, ‘Dreams from My Father,’ by Barack Obama, which is quoted in a new GOP-backed, anti-Biden, attack ad
The ad proclaims Biden wrote a bill when he was a senator ‘that disproportionately jailed African Americans,’ in a reference to his role in passed legislation in the 1980s and 1990s that experts say lead to the mass incarceration of black people in black communities
A GOP-backed, anti-Biden, attack ad ends asking viewers ‘Don’t believe his empty promises’
Biden was asked how the government should address the history of slavery, and had gone off on a tangent saying black parents needed outside intervention to properly raise their children.
The ad ends asking viewers not to believe Biden’s ’empty promises.’
A spokesman for Biden, said the ads are another reminder that Trump and his allies are ‘absolutely terrified’ of facing Biden in the November election.
A spokesman for Biden, said the ads are another reminder that Trump and his allies are ‘absolutely terrified’ of facing Biden in the November election.
‘This latest intervention in the Democratic primary is one of the most desperate yet, a despicable torrent of misinformation by the president’s lackeys. It spotlights yet again what we’ve all known for a very long time: Joe Biden will win this battle for the soul of our nation,’ said the spokesman, Andrew Bates, Bloomberg reports.
Ted Harvey, chairman of the Committee to Defend the President, rejected any demand for a cease and desist.
‘Joe Biden’ Harvey said in a statement, ‘is simply giving lip-service for votes. That’s the point President Obama made in his book, and we have every right to use his own words — in his own voice — in the political forum.’