The Trump campaign has sent a cease-and-desist letter to a Michigan TV station over a super PAC ad that accuses Trump of being soft on China as the pandemic began. Via NBC News:
Trump’s campaign earlier this month sued a Wisconsin TV station and sent cease-and-desist letters to other swing-state TV stations over an ad from a different Democratic super PAC, Priorities USA. The latest cease-and-desist letter, obtained by NBC News, targets WOOD, an NBC affiliate in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and demands the station stop running “a false, misleading, and deceptive advertisement” produced by an offshoot of the Democratic group American Bridge.
The ad, which Trump also attacked in a tweet, accuses Trump of trusting China even though, the narrator says, “everyone knew they lied about the virus.” And it suggests the Trump administration shipped 17 tons of medical supplies the U.S. now needs to China in the early days of the outbreak, before it was widespread in the United States.
The Trump campaign said the State Department merely helped manage logistics for the shipment of medical supplies by using chartered planes that were bound for China to repatriate Americans and would have flown empty otherwise. Instead, the planes carried goods donated by a group of charities and businesses.
American Bridge, however, noted how the Trump administration publicly touted the shipment and pointed to Trump's repeated praise for China’s response to the coronavirus in the early days of the pandemic. In response to Trump's criticism, the group said it would put an additional “six figures” behind the ad to run it on digital platforms.
