Reagan plays

Ronald Reagan plays a starring role in new anti-Trump ad

By Gabriel Debenedetti

The biggest super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton is using Republican icon Ronald Reagan against Donald Trump in its latest stinging battleground-state television ad, harshly portraying the GOP nominee as an inciter of violence rather than a uniter.

The spot from Priorities USA Action, which contrasts the former president’s soaring rhetoric with clips of violence from Trump’s rallies, lands just hours after his latest campaign event, in North Carolina, was pocked by physical scuffles between protesters and supporters. There, Trump accused Clinton of running a “hate-filled campaign."

The 30-second ad, which is due to run in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, opens with a voiceover from Reagan as his name is displayed across the screen over black and white images. First up: what appears to be a father and son on a farm, followed by older black and white women embracing, and then by a veteran with a small girl.

“We are one nation under God, that black and white, we are one nation indivisible,” says Reagan in the clip from his 1986 Independence Day address. “That Republican and Democrat, we are all Americans."

The video then abruptly cuts to quickly flashing black-and-white images of Trump rallies before a red square zooms in on the now-famous March clip of a Trump supporter sucker-punching a protester in North Carolina, while the voiceover switches to Trump saying, “I’d like to punch him in the face."

After more quick black-and-white cuts interspersed with red, Trump is shown telling a crowd: “You know what they used to do to guys like that? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks."

The screen turns to more images of Trump rally violence before closing with another shot of Trump himself, this time telling voters, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters."

The video — which will hit television screens as the super PAC has over $10 million in TV ad time booked over the next two weeks — is Priorities’ latest attempt to paint Trump as divisive, but it’s the first that so explicitly invokes Reagan.

Republicans have for years used the Californian as their go-to presidential touchpoint, and his name has recently popped up on the campaign trail more frequently as Clinton has wooed GOP voters resistant to Trump — including by highlighting her support from former Reagan administration officials.

Clinton has repeatedly invoked Reagan in public, asking a crowd, “What would Ronald Reagan think?” of Trump as recently as Thursday.