ABC, which aired Thursday night’s debate among the Democratic presidential candidates, came under fire from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over an ad that ran during the debate in some markets in which her photograph was set on fire.
You can see the ad in the Twitter post below.
Ocasio-Cortez criticized both ABC and Sinclair in a response to the ad today on Twitter, writing: “GOP’s message: No policy, no facts, just displays of violence + corporations like @ABCNetwork & Sinclair who amplify them.
“They profit from burning my likeness on TV. But who pays for heightened security? Who answers the phones for the threats resulting from a violent, false ad?”
Deadline reports: “The ad, which ran in markets including New York and Washington D.C., came from the New Faces GOP PAC, which is led by Elizabeth Heng, who last year sought to unseat Democrat Jim Costa in a California House district.”
As the ad opens with a photo of Ocasio-Cortez, Heng is heard saying in a voice-over: “This is the face of socialism. Does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez know the horrors of socialism?”
The image of Ocasio-Cortez is then seen burning as the picture dissolves to reveal an image of skeletons. Deadline notes that Heng is the daughter of Cambodian immigrants who fled the communist Khmer Rouge.
Ocasio-Cortez commented in a tweet she sent out Thursday night that “Republicans are running TV ads setting pictures of me on fire to convince people they aren’t racist. Life is weird.”
The report notes that the ad did not run nationally.
“ABC, which owns WABC-TV in New York, has not issued any comment yet, and a spokesman for Sinclair, which owns WJLA-TV in Washington, could not immediately be reached,” Deadline reports.
Learn more about "New Faces GOP" super PAC that paid for ads attacking @AOC during the #DemDebate in FCC records using @OpenSecrets political ad tracker: https://t.co/1rJRNEYEZe pic.twitter.com/f8s7cxSbP9
— Anna Massoglia (@annalecta) September 13, 2019
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