In the last few days, two defamation cases filed against media companies by the Trump campaign have been dismissed – one on the merits and one by agreement of the parties. This includes the suit filed by the campaign against Northland Television, the licensee of a rural Wisconsin television station. That station was perhaps the smallest TV station to air an ad by a non-candidate group, Priorities USA, that the Trump campaign alleged was misleadingly edited to assert that the President had labeled the coronavirus a “hoax.”
The top Democratic super PAC backing Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is using a seven-figure cash injection from billionaire Michael Bloomberg to launch a new advertising blitz in Florida. Priorities USA announced on Thursday that it would use the $5.4 million donation from Bloomberg to buy a week of air time across Florida’s 10 media markets beginning Friday.
The Priorities USA super PAC has been given a judicial OK to join a legal battle between Trump’s financially flush Republican reelection campaign and WJFW Wausau-Rhinelander, Wis. (DMA 134), which is being sued for airing a Priorities USA ad.
Trump Campaign Sues WJFW Over Biden Ad
Donald Trump’s campaign sued the Wausau-Rhinelander, Wis., CBS affiliate on Monday after it continued to air an ad from a pro-Joe Biden super PAC that attacks the President’s response to the coronavirus crisis. The spot features a graph mapping coronavirus cases in the U.S. over the past two months, with audio of comments Trump has made downplaying the threat of the virus.
Lawyers for the largest outside group supporting President Trump’s reelection sent letters to television station managers in key battleground states on Wednesday demanding they stop running a new ad cut by a top Democratic super PAC. Legal counsel to America First Action, the pro-Trump group, sent a letter to station managers in Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania demanding a new ad from Priorities USA be taken off the air, arguing that it falsely gives the impression that Trump called the coronavirus a “hoax.”
The largest Democratic super PAC is expanding its 2020 budget by $50 million as it seeks to keep Democrats competitive with President Trump’s reelection spending while the party focuses on its nominating process. Priorities USA had already committed $100 million this cycle to advertising, election infrastructure and mobilization efforts in the key battleground states of Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Today, the group announced its budget had grown to $150 million, including $70 million in television and digital ads that will begin running in February in the four battleground states.
