Cop-Killer That Trump Ad Blames On Democrats Came To US Under Bush, And Used Gun Republicans Refuse To Outlaw
Luis Bracamontes is the centerpiece of a controversial campaign ad from Donald Trump that claims Democrats are to blame for the illegal immigrant having killed two police officers — and then bragging that he would do it again.
There’s only one problem, as the Daily Beast points out — Bracamontes entered the United States while George W. Bush was president, and used a gun that Republicans, including Donald Trump, have fought to keep legal amid calls from the left to ban it.
This week, Trump’s campaign released an ad featuring Bracamontes, an undocumented immigrant sentenced to death for killing two sheriff’s deputies in Sacramento, California. The ad, in no uncertain terms, blames Democrats for the murders. Text overlays are incorporated into the ad, which read “Democrats let him into our country” and “Democrats let him stay.”
As ABC News noted, the ad also tried to tie into the recent migrant caravan in Mexico — by showing footage believed to center on members of the caravan, picturing caravan members pushing down gates and barricades.
“Who else would Democrats let in?” the ad reads.
The advertisement was immediately decried as racist by politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Republican Senator Jeff Flake. Flake called on Republicans to denounce the ad.
But it has also drawn criticism for apparently fudging some important facts about Luis Bracamontes. As the Daily Beast noted, Bracamontes was deported during Bill Clinton’s administration, after an arrest for selling drugs. But he returned four years later, while George W. Bush was president, before being caught and deported again.
But Bracamontes returned the following year, and stayed until 2014 — when he shot and killed two police officers.
There was another glaring omission in Trump’s controversial ad, the Daily Beast added. It did not mention that Bracamontes killed the officers with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, a model that many Democrats have aimed to ban and that Republicans — including Donald Trump — have defended.
The cop killer that Trump used in his video attacking Democrats for letting into the country actually came back into the United States under Bush
https://t.co/GzhhPv6Ua3Via @MichaelDalynyc
— Sam Stein (@samstein) November 1, 2018
Donald Trump released the ad on the same day that his administration announced it would be increasing the number of troops stationed at the U.S. border, raising it from the current level of 5,000 up to either 10,000 or 15,000. That would mean that there are more troops at the border than are currently stationed in Afghanistan.
Despite the criticism and widespread accusations of racism, Donald Trump has not backed away from the ad. He has pinned the video of it to the top of his Twitter feed, along with the message: “It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now!”
