Conservative Koch Network Releases Ads Targeting Trump Ahead of Federal Arraignment
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The conservative Koch Network has released a series of digital ads arguing that former President Donald Trump cannot win back the White House in 2024, even as most establishment Republicans have backed Trump as he heads to federal court in Miami Tuesday.
The ads argue that if Trump becomes the Republican nominee, President Joe Biden will not only win reelection, but the Democrats will keep the Senate and take back the House of Representatives.
Americans for Prosperity Action, a super PAC that spent $78.5 million during the 2022 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, and is largely backed by the Charles Koch-chaired Koch Industries and the Koch-backed Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, shared three new spots with CNBC.
The first, just 15 seconds long, is called “Only Way,” and notes that 60% of voters don’t want to be president. “The only way Biden wins is if we nominate Trump again,” the spot concludes. “The American people are ready to move on.”
The second 15-second spot, called “No Thanks,” starts off with a nod that says, “Trump did a lot of good things as president,” but quickly adds, “but this time Trump can’t win.”
“Swing voters say no,” the ad continues, repeating the 60% of Americans “dont want him,” comment, and ending with the statement, “We need new leadership.”
The third clip, “Biden’s Secret Weapon,” labels a Trump nomination as the current president’s “ticket to reelection” and warns that “then Biden wins the White House and gets the House and Senate, too.”
The withering ads are debuting in key early primary and caucus states Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Nevada, Americans for Prosperity Action told CNBC, as the president faces arraignment Tuesday in the federal case over his hoarding of classified and top secret military documents that he took from the White House to his Mar A Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump has vociferously maintained that he did nothing wrong despite the voluminous evidence in the indictment released Friday, which included a transcript of a tape wherein he acknowledged that a document he was showing to ghostwriters for his former chief of staff was secret and he could no longer declassify it.
Trump is set to appear at in court at 2 p.m. before District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who he appointed and who ruled in his favor last year in a dispute over whether an outside special council could be appointed to review the classified documents the FBI seized at Mar A Lago. Her ruling was overturned by a federal appeals panel
Tuesday morning, the former president railed over the case on his social media platform, Truth Social, reposting stories about Hillary Clinton’s emails and Biden’s son, Hunter, and calling Jack Smith, the special council who brought the case to the grand jury, a “thug,” a “radical right lunatic” and “Trump Hater,” and accused him of planting information in the boxes taken from his estate.
