Vietnam Vet Slams Trump in New Super-PAC Ad

“He’s not fit to be president.”

Priorities USA Action ad called "Sacrifice"

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The pro-Hillary Clinton super-PAC Priorities USA Action released an ad Monday hitting Donald Trump for comparing his sacrifices to those of Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan, who lost their son in the Iraq War. The new ad features a Vietnam veteran who charges that Trump’s comments make him unfit to be president.

Trump’s claim to have sacrificed greatly in his life came this summer as part of his response to Khizr Khan, a Muslim American whose son died in Iraq in 2004. Khan’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in July included the powerful line: “You have sacrificed nothing and no one.” Shortly afterward, Trump gave an interview to ABC News in which he claimed he had also made sacrifices in his life. Pressed on what they were, he said, “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”

In the new ad, Russell Wiesley, a former Marine, responds to these comments. “For Donald Trump to compare getting rich to the hell we went through,” he says, “he’s not fit to be president.” As he speaks, the camera pans down to show that Wiesley lost one of his legs in Vietnam.

The ad appears to be part of an effort by Clinton and her allies to remind voters of Trump’s feud with the Khan family, one of the most damaging episodes in his tumultuous presidential campaign, in the weeks before the election. Last week, the Clinton campaign released an ad featuring a tearful Khan asking Trump, “Would my son have a place in your America?”

The new ad is part of a multimillion-dollar ad buy and will run in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Nevada, Iowa, and New Hampshire—the same states where the Clinton campaign is running its ad featuring Khan.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate