Republicans are threatening to sue TV stations running ads supporting Donald Trump, linking them to the nominee and potentially hurting their own races.
Five Republicans: Reps. Bob Dold (R-Ill.), Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), David Jolly (R-Fla.), John Katko (R-N.Y.) and Brian Fitzpatrick argue that commercials paid for the DCCC offer false or misleading information to connect their party to Donald Trump.
Ad against Trump. (Credit: http://www.nytimes.com)
All of those Republicans, of course, don’t like Trump. The DCCC has been using that against Trump by making ads to link the two. This is nothing new though.
Candidates have been known to threaten TV stations to get ads pulled. The Federal Communications Commission says that stations have legal responsibility for this when dealing with independents. They must get rid of ads portraying “false, misleading, or deceptive” messages. Legal actions are rare. Candidates typically depend on TV stations to remove these ads.
Ads Link Candidates to Trump
The ads draw a link between a candidate and Trump that he/she supports him even if he/she has said differently. The commercials all take different avenues but converge on the same meaning.
In one ad against Katko there is footage of him saying that he would support Trump for sure. And yet, his lawyer says he never would support Trump.
Coffman and Trump
Another add links Coffman to Trump. It demonstrates Coffman questioning if President Obama was born in the US or not. His lawyer said that it makes people think he likes Trump. Although critical of Trump, Coffman has said that he would support whoever became the Republican nominee.
Coffman campaign spokeswoman, Cinamon Watson said, “Over the last two election cycles, Nancy Pelosi and her SuperPac have spent millions of dollars trying to smear Mike’s record. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.”
As for Donald, he ordered that the ad be removed because it assumed that he was raising money privately to fight Hillary Clinton. Trump said that money only went to local candidates.
*Editor’s Note: This post was edited for accuracy after publication.
