A super PAC backing President Trump launched a $1 million ad buy in Arizona hitting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on issues of safety.
The Committee to Defend the President’s ad repeats a line of attack the Trump campaign has tried to use on Biden, with the narrator asking “just how long do you think you’ll be safe in Joe Biden’s America?”
The ad, part of a campaign focused on the battleground state of Arizona, is set to air statewide on cable and broadcast networks. The latest ad buy is in addition to a $90,000 digital and CTV layout the super PAC said will target “swing voters and suburban women in the state.”
The ad features a woman pushing a child on a swing, alternating with clips of recent protests, as a narrator warns about the “unspeakable violence” in “Joe Biden’s America.”
“I’ve seen a vision of Joe Biden’s America. I see it on the news every single day. Broken glass, boarded up windows, the devastation and ruin of our beautiful cities … gripped by unspeakable violence. It’s just another day in Joe Biden’s America,” the narrator says.
“I thought my family would be safe. We live in a good neighborhood, surrounded by nice people, but nobody is ever really safe in Joe Biden’s America,” the narrator adds.
The narrator criticizes local leaders, saying that the areas with protests are “governed by Biden’s endorsers.”
Trump and his allies have for months been focusing in on a message that Biden would make America unsafe. A spokesperson for the Biden campaign was not immediately available for comment in response to the ad, but Biden has countered the same attack in the past by arguing that Trump has fomented the violence Republicans are trying to blame Biden and Democrats for.
“And since they have no agenda or vision for a second term, Trump and [Vice President] Pence are running on this: ‘You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,’” Biden said in a speech in Pittsburgh at the end of August. “And what’s their proof? The violence you’re seeing in Donald Trump’s America.”
“These are not images from some imagined ‘Joe Biden’s America’ in the future. These are images from Donald Trump’s America today. He keeps telling you if only he was president it wouldn’t happen. He keeps telling us if he was president you would feel safe,” Biden continued. “Well – he is president. And it is happening. And you don’t.”
During the same speech, Biden condemned rioting and looting.
“I want to be very clear about all of this: rioting is not protesting,” Biden said. “Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted. Violence will not bring change, it will only bring destruction. It’s wrong in every way, it divides instead of unites.”
Trump narrowly carried Arizona in 2016, and it is one of several key battleground states in the upcoming election. A CNBC poll released Wednesday found Biden leading Trump by 4 points, 49 percent to 45 percent.