Biden Floundering: Former VP's Campaign Reportedly Pressures Media To Block Trump's Ukraine Ad
Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden is now turning to the media for help in battling allegations of misconduct regarding his activities in Ukraine.
The Biden campaign is asking TV networks not to run an ad developed by President Donald Trump’s campaign that attacks Biden for his role in stopping the 2016 prosecution of a Ukrainian energy company that employed his son, Hunter, as a board member paid $50,000 a month.
To date, CNN and NBC have agreed to play by Biden’s rules. NBC has refused to run the ad without unspecified changes, according to The Hill.
That decision came after CNN said it would not accept the commercial.
“CNN is rejecting the ad, as it does not meet our advertising standards,” the network said in a statement. “Specifically, in addition to disparaging CNN and its journalists, the ad makes assertions that have been proven demonstrably false by various news outlets, including CNN.”
Fox News, however, rejected the pressure.
“We are not in the business of censoring ads from candidates on either side of the aisle,” Fox’s statement said. “Vice President Joe Biden has a standing invitation to appear on any of our platforms.”
The Biden campaign, fighting off allegations of corruption, has also pressured social media giants, including Facebook, Google and Twitter, but has so far achieved no success.
Biden has claimed that “not one single outlet has given any credibility” to Trump’s claims that Biden’s actions in Ukraine were wrong, the New York Post has reported.
Check out the ad here:
Biden’s appeal could backfire, one commentator said.
“It turns the Biden campaign into the one calling out the press…Then the Biden campaign looks like the one who’s essentially yelling at the umpire in the game and nobody likes that person,” said Joshua Scacco, a professor of political communication at the University of South Florida, according to KECI.
The Biden team’s effort to control what the networks will air was fodder for discussion Friday on “Fox & Friends.”
“Look, this is what’s been kind of fascinating. It’s been happening for a while,” Fox News commentator Tammy Bruce said. “Remember Joe Biden’s team had warned everyone to stop booking Rudy Giuliani. In this case, a number of networks have decided they’ve refused to air Trump campaign commercial that criticizes Joe Biden, which is what campaigns are for.
“We have a discussion about what people are doing. What they have accomplished.”
Bruce said campaign ads are not expected to be unbiased.
“It’s, of course, a campaign ad. So it’s critical. It doesn’t present it in a neutral way but it’s meant to give you some information about the nature of what Joe Biden and his son Hunter have been doing and that’s, I think, fair game in a campaign and a dynamic when you’re a politician.”
“Bruce noted that Biden’s campaign scolded The New York Times for allowing an Op-Ed that contained criticism of Biden.
“And the Joe Biden team, his campaign, publicly excoriated the New York Times for doing this, for effectively going out of their lane, that they shouldn’t have done it. This is what totalitarian societies do to state media. There seems to be an expectation by certainly the Biden campaign that you do not criticize him,” Bruce said.
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign released another hard-hitting ad about Biden last week.
FACT: Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its prosecutor
FACT: The prosecutor said he was forced out for leading a corruption probe into Hunter Biden’s companypic.twitter.com/u3ESdbdYpb
— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) October 9, 2019
Facebook told Biden that it would not abide by the campaign’s request to block the earlier campaign ad.
“Our approach is grounded in Facebook’s fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is,” Facebook’s head of global elections policy Katie Harbath wrote in a letter, according to Reuters.
Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo called Facebook’s decision “unacceptable.”
The Trump campaign said the ad did not lie.
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