CNN sends cease-and-desist letter to Trump campaign over ‘deceptive’ new ad

CNN’s parent company told President Trump’s reelection campaign Monday to stop running a new political ad that contains edited footage of the network’s coronavirus coverage.

A lawyer for WarnerMedia sent a cease-and-desist lawyer to the Trump campaign demanding that it stop airing the television ad in its current form, CNN reported.

Released on Sunday, the one-minute ad contains an excerpt from a March 30 segment of CNN’s “Situation Room” involving the president’s response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Well, is it accurate that if these steps had not been put in place, the stay-at-home orders, the social distancing orders, as the President said yesterday, it could have been 2 million people dead here in the United States?” CNN host Wolf Blitzer asked during the episode.

“It’s a little tough to say, but, you know, if you talk about something that is spreading, you know, very robustly throughout a community. You know, two to three times more contagious than flu, and up to 10 times, perhaps even more than that, more deadly than flu, then yes,” CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta replied.

The ad released by the Trump campaign omits the part of the CNN segment that mentioned stay-at-home order and social distancing, and it instead falsely implies that Mr. Blitzer was referring to restrictions the president imposed on travel from China where the outbreak began.

“Is it accurate that if these steps had not been put in place … it could’ve been 2 million people dead here in the United States?” Mr. Blitzer says in the ad while video of an Air China flight and the word “canceled” is shown in Chinese and English

All of Dr. Gupta’s reply to cut from the Trump ad except for the word “Yes.”

Rick D. McMurtry argued in the cease-and-desist letter the ad misuses the television segment in a manner that’s “false, misleading and deceptive,” CNN reported.

The ad, he wrote, according to CNN, “purposely and deceptively edits the clip to imply that Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were crediting the President’s travel ban policy issued in January for saving millions of American lives, when in fact Mr. Blitzer and Dr. Gupta were discussing recently implemented social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders issued by state and local governments.”

“CNN hereby demands that you discontinue airing the advertisement with the CNN clip that has been distorted in such a way as to mislead the public,” Mr. McMurtry said, CNN reported.

Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director, stood by the ad in a statement issued in response to the cease-and-desist letter, the report said.

“No discussion of efforts to prevent American deaths from the coronavirus can be had without the understanding that President Trump restricted travel from China in January. Based on that alone, the ad is accurate,” he replied, according to CNN.

The Trump campaign previously said it was spending several million dollars on the ad. It debuted Monday on Fox News during the president’s virtual town hall the network aired.