All Major Networks Now Refuse to Air Trump's 'Fake News' Ad

Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign says all three major networks have joined CNN in refusing to air an ad that attacks them.

CNN was the first to reject the 30-second spot, which included the words “fake news” in bold, red font over photos of news anchors, including CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell and Rachel Maddow, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and CBS’s Scott Pelley.

And now the Trump campaign is saying the move represents unlawful censorship.

“Apparently, the mainstream media are champions of the First Amendment only when it serves their own political views,” Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and campaign consultant, said in a statement Friday.

Also Read: Watch Trump's 'Fake News' Ad That CNN Refuses to Air (Video)

“Faced with an ad that doesn’t fit their biased narrative, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC have now all chosen to block our ad. This is an unprecedented act of censorship in America that should concern every freedom-loving citizen,” she added.

In statement on Tuesday, CNN said that it had no problem airing the ad if the network agrees to remove the offending graphic. “CNN requested that the advertiser remove the false graphic that the mainstream media is ‘fake news,'” the cable channel said. “The mainstream media is not fake news, and therefore the ad is false and per policy will be accepted only if that graphic is deleted.”

NBCUniversal issued its own statement saying that,”Consistent with our policies, we have agreed to accept the ad if the inaccurate graphic — which refers to journalists as ‘fake news’ — is corrected.”

Also Read: Trump Campaign Blasts 'Shameful' CNN for Refusing to Air Its 'Fake News' Ad

CBS had no comment. A rep for ABC not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

The ad was produced by Trump’s campaign committee, which is already working to seek the president’s reception in 2020. According to the Trump campaign, it plans on spending $1.5 million to push the ad online.

“It is absolutely shameful to see the media blocking the positive message that President Trump is trying to share with the country,” Michael Glassner, the Trump campaign’s executive director, said in a statement Tuesday.

10 Times Donald Trump Shared Fake News (Photos)

Donald Trump is the country's most prominent spreader of fake news. Here are ten unquestionably fake news stories he has shared.
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In 2009, Trump helped create fake news when the USA Network and WWE falsely reported that Trump was planning to buy "Monday Night RAW." It turned out that it was all part of a wrestling storyline.
Trump spent years demanding that President Obama produce his birth certificate and other papers in response to false e-mails that Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim. He finally admitted Obama was born in this country in September, then accused Hillary Clinton of starting the lies about Obama.
In December 2011, Trump said President Obama "issued a statement for Kwanza but failed to issue one for Christmas." That was provably false. (This photo is from 2014.)
Trump said in 2015 that "thousands and thousands of people were cheering" in Jersey City, N.J. when the World Trade Center fell on Sept. 11, 2011. Although some radio stations and websites reported celebrations in nearby Paterson, N.J., the city denied the reports.
In February 2016, Trump entertained conspiracy theories that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered when he said he was found with "a pillow on his face." Alex Jones' InfoWars had earlier reported on suggestions Scalia was killed. But the owner of the ranch where Scalia died later clarified that he did not have a pillow over his face.
In June 2016, Trump tweeted a photo that purported to show a family of African-Americans who supported him. But they told BuzzFeed they definitely did not.
Twitter
In another case of Trump creating the fake news, he scored 22,000 retweets on Election Day by posting, "Just out according to @CNN: 'Utah officials report voting machine problems across entire country.'" But it was just one county. No R.
On Nov. 10, Trump tweeted that post-Election Day protestors were “professional,” but a professional fake-news writer, Paul Horner, admitted that he had invented a story about protesters being paid.

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After saying for months before election day that the vote would be rigged, Trump won. He subsequently said “million of people” voted illegally. A guy on Twitter who had tweeted that 3 million voted illegally declined to provide any source. Trump has continued to make baseless claims about millions of illegal voters since he took office.
YouTube
Let's give credit where its due: On Dec. 6, Trump fired one of his transition team staffers for tweeting a fake news story that led to an armed confrontation in a Washington, DC pizza restaurant. The issue became known as "pizzagate."
On his first full day in office, Trump visited the Central Intelligence Agency and claimed 1.5 million people attended his inauguration. The New York Times said that photographs "disproved" that number. Vox did a deep dive into why Trump's numbers appeared to be off. And a Texas NHL team, among others, made fun of him.
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