‘The swamp won’: Lincoln Project needles Trump with new attack ad
‘They brought you a little bowl to hold in your little hands, and you fell for it,’ the Lincoln Project taunts Mr Trump in a new ad
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The election is over, but the Lincoln Project is still taunting Donald Trump.
“The swamp won, Donald,” the anti-Trump group says in a new attack ad. “Mitch McConnell’s Washington consultants are making big money using your name.”
The new ad, titled “Swamp Thing,” is set to hit airwaves on Fox News and local stations in Palm Beach, just before the former president leaves Mar-a-Lago to spend his summer in New Jersey. Throughout the ad, a deep-voiced narrator mocks Mr Trump as images of swamp creatures flicker on screen.
“Maybe you shouldn’t run again,” the narrator drawls. “Maybe the power Mitch McConnell has over the GOP is just too much for you. Maybe what McConnell and the rest of Washington is saying is true: that Trump is done.”
Mr Trump has openly feuded with Senate Minority Leader McConnell since 6 January last year, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the United States Capitol. Mr McConnell said the former president was “practically and morally responsible” for the attack, though Mr McConnell did not vote to convict Mr Trump at his impeachment trial.
Since then, Mr Trump has repeatedly insulted Mr McConnell in his public comments, calling him a “dumb son of a bitch” and a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.”
Meanwhile, the ex-president has also demanded that Republicans stop using his name and likeness to raise money. The Republican National Committee has responded that Mr Trump is a public figure, and it can refer to him however it wants.
The new Lincoln Project ad seeks to inflame all these conflicts.
“You’re getting played,” the ad tells Mr Trump. “They’re laughing at you, all the way to the bank.”
The one-minute spot even brings up a trophy that Republican senator Rick Scott personally delivered to the former president at Mar-a-Lago – the newly established “Champion for Freedom Award.”
“They brought you a little bowl to hold in your little hands, and you fell for it,” the ad says.
Mr Trump has long been sensitive about the size of his hands.
The Lincoln Project was formed by a group of anti-Trump Republicans to help prevent his reelection in 2020. Since Mr Trump lost, however, the group’s ads have continued. Another TV spot, released on 21 April, calls him “old, impotent, [and] an embarrassment.”
It is not clear whether the new ads are intended to cause strife within the Republican Party, to bait Mr Trump into running for a second term, or simply to torment him.
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