Donald Trump’s Camp Threatens TV Stations For Airing Contentious Ad About POTUS’ Coronavirus Response

Donald Trump’s camp is threatening TV stations for airing contentious ad against the president.

A political ad against the president of the United States is making the rounds online. It stitches various statements from the POTUS about COVID-19, showing how he downplayed the pandemic while the coronavirus cases continue to rise.

Trump’s re-election camp reached out to TV stations and told them to stop airing the ad criticizing Trump or they will lose their license to operate, Bloomberg reported. Failure to remove the ad “could put your station’s license in jeopardy,” Trump’s camp said in the letter. “Your station has an obligation to cease and desist from airing it immediately to comply with FCC licensing requirements.”

However, the publication noted that the move is “a challenge that may be more bluster than actual threat.” First, FCC doesn’t have grounds to act against the stations for airing the controversial ad which is “core political speech” protected by First Amendment that guarantees free speech.

“This is the sort of letter that stations get in political years, day in and day out,” said Jack Goodman, a Washington broadcast attorney. “It’s intended to intimidate.”

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, shared the same opinion. According to him, a license revocation is unlikely to be happen in any scenario in this case.

Priorities USA, a political action committee that supports Democractic candidate Joe Biden, is behind the ad. It refused to be intimidated by Trump’s campaign team and response by announcing that it would keep running the ad. It even began airing the ad in Arizona. The group also announced that it will spend $600,000 over the next few weeks for it.

“Trump’s super-PAC and now Trump’s campaign are resorting to desperate threats to keep Americans from hearing the truth,” said Patrick McHugh, the executive director of Priorities. “Priorities USA will continue ensuring voters hear the truth.”

Meanwhile, several Twitter users called the POTUS “covididiot” after watching the ad. They agreed that the POTUS did not respond with urgency to the matter.

On the other hand, Trump believes that he did the best thing in response to the pandemic. In fact, when he was asked to rate his COVID-19 response, the POTUS did not hesitate to give himself a perfect 10.