May 5, 2020

In Late-Night Tirade, Trump Explodes at New Ad From Anti-Trump Conservatives

“They’re all LOSERS.”

Erin Schaff/ZUMA

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In a Twitter tirade shortly after midnight on Tuesday, Donald Trump lashed out a conservative super PAC that opposes his reelection bid after the group released an ad accusing the president of gravely mishandling the coronavirus crisis.

“There’s mourning in America, and under the leadership of Donald Trump, our country is weaker and sicker and poorer,” the Lincoln Project ad says—an allusion to Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “morning again in America” ad. “Now, Americans are asking, ‘If we have another four years like this, will there even be an America?'” the new ad concludes.

The message apparently enraged Trump, who took specific aim at the group’s members, including George Conway, the prominent conservative lawyer and husband to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

“I don’t know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad,” the president tweeted.

“They’re all LOSERS, but Abe Lincoln, Republican, is all smiles!” he added.

“Mourning in America” is the Lincoln Project’s second coronavirus-related attack ad to take inspiration from ads made famous by Reagan’s 1984 campaign. In March, as it became clear that Trump had downplayed the pandemic and wasted valuable time by failing to prepare for the crisis, the group released “Virus in the World,” which echoed Reagan’s “bear in the woods” ad—a Cold War-era attack on critics of Reagan’s hardline stance against the Soviet Union.

The late-night diatribe on Tuesday all but confirms that the group is hitting a nerve with Trump, particularly as reelection polls increasingly show him at risk of losing to Joe Biden in November. 

Prominent critics of the president responded to his fury by sharing the video:

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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