9/7/20
Joe Biden is relaunching an ad campaign targeting military service members, according to his campaign, following a bombshell report that said President Donald Trump privately referred to fallen US soldiers as "losers" and "suckers." The president made those comments in an attempt to explain the reason for his canceled visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery outside Paris in 2018, according to the report, published in The Atlantic. This is the site where hundreds of American soldiers who died fighting during World War I lie. "Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers," Trump said of the trip, according to The Atlantic. In a separate conversation also related to the trip, Trump referred to dead Marines as "suckers," The Atlantic reported. Immediately after the report was published, Trump's remarks received resounding criticism, with Biden delivering some of the strongest words against them. "If what is written in The Atlantic is true, it's disgusting and affirms what most of us believe to be true: That Donald Trump is not fit to do the job of president and be commander in chief," Biden said during a news conference last week.
The Democratic presidential nominee has taken his criticism further, relaunching a $47 million ad campaign across various TV, digital, and radio platforms. In January, Biden released an ad titled "Protect Our Troops," featuring Biden interacting with military service members, including his late son Beau. This ad ran across several platforms over the weekend in five swing states: Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. That ad represents just one facet of the $47 million campaign. The relaunch effort will be an attempt to reach voters living near military bases in key battleground states. In addition to the ad buy, Biden also tweeted out a video Friday bashing Trump for his comments. Less than a minute long and entirely wordless, the video delivers a series of powerful images of burial sites where US soldiers lie. Each burial site was one that Trump declined to visit for ceremonies to honor those who died serving. Images of the burial sites and of soldiers marching are overlaid in the video with the president's remarks, as reported by The Atlantic.
