This week, TTN reported that Trump was suing an NBC affiliate WFJW-TV in Wisconsin over its airing of an ad containing “false and defamatory statements” about the President.
The democratic-aligned Super PAC Priorities USA running the ad has said they will fight President Trump’s campaign in court over the ad.
According to the Associated Press, The democratic-aligned Super PAC Priorities USA running the ad has said they will fight President Trump’s campaign in court if necessary.
The leader of the PAC, Guy Cecil, also accused the Trump campaign of attempting to “railroad” the NBC affiliate into censorship regarding the campaign’s cease and desist order and subsequent lawsuit against the station.
According to our earlier reporting:
Trump’s campaign sent a cease and desist letter to the station in late March to get them to stop airing a television ad entitled “Exponential Threat”. The ad is produced and funded by Priorities USA, a liberal Super PAC.
Today the campaign is filing a lawsuit after the station continued to run the ad.
The campaign says beyond it containing false and defamatory statements about the President it is “far more insidious and, ultimately, far more dangerous”.
Additionally, the campaign said the ad was produced by using digital technology to take audio clips from campaign events and piecing them together to make a “blatantly false statement” that President Trump never said.
The manufactured quote is “The coronavirus, this is their new hoax.”
The lawsuit alleges the TV station airing the ad has “perpetrated a fraud on the public by recklessly broadcasting [Priorities USA’s] defamatory and false advertisement, which [the station] knew or should have known was produced through the use of technology that depicted a clearly false statement.”
The television station aired the ad 36 times over the 11 days after the Trump campaign sent its original cease and desist letter in late March.
Here is the advertisement:
Priorities USA has defended the ad saying that it uses President Trump’s own words.
