MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Torches Trump PAC Ad Questioning Whether Biden Survives 2nd Term: ‘Ugliest’ She’s Seen ‘Since Willie Horton’
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell called a fresh ad from a pro-Donald Trump Super PAC maybe the “ugliest campaign ad” she’s seen “since Willie Horton.”
Ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, a Trump Super PAC released an ad questioning whether the 81-year-old Democrat (Trump is 77) can even survive a second presidential term. The 30-second spot ends with Vice President Kamala Harris laughing next to a clip of Biden tripping his way up the stairs to Air Force One.
“That’s about the ugliest campaign ad I’ve seen maybe since Willie Horton,” Mitchell said on Thursday.
The infamous Willie Horton ad is largely seen as an example of race-baiting in a political campaign. Supporters of George H.W. Bush put the ad together for his 1988 presidential campaign against Democrat Michael Dukakis. The ad features images of Bush, Dukakis, and a mugshot of Horton flashing on the screen as a narrator calls Dukakis weak on crime.
Horton was a convicted murderer who raped a woman and stabbed her partner while on a prison furlough in Massachussetts. The furlough program was in place under Dukakis, who was governor at the time.
The New York Times reported in 2018 on the ad:
To many African-American people, the scars from that campaign attack remain fresh. Whatever Mr. Bush’s intentions, they said, the campaign encouraged more race-based politics and put Democrats on the defensive, forcing them to prove themselves on crime at the expense of a generation of African-American men and women who were locked up under tougher sentencing laws championed by President Bill Clinton, among others.
On Thursday, MSNBC reporter Garrett Haake called the ad an example of how “aggressive” Trump and his allies will be in making Biden’s age a central issue in November’s election.
“It is as aggressive an ad as — some say inappropriate ad as anybody, as I’ve seen, as you pointed out, since Willie Horton, but I think it speaks to aggressive posture of the Trump campaign and their allies want to take in this campaign and to the degree that they want to make Joe Biden’s fitness,” he said.
“That’s certainly not subtle,” Mitchell said.
“Subelty was never their style,” Haake responded.
Mitchell noted that the ad was “devastating” for Dukakis.
“Willie Horton was that ad put together in the 1980s campaign that had a devastating impact on Michael Dukakis’s campaign against Vice President Bush,” she said.
The anti-Biden ad ran across a number of networks on Thursday, beginning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, which is reportedly one of Biden’s favorite shows.
The Biden campaign called the ad “sick and deranged.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
