WHY IS THIS SO HARD?

Trump Campaign Uses Russian Footage in Ad—Again

The Trump campaign just can’t seem to find stock footage of the United States for its patriotic-themed ads.

An advertisement for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign emphasizes that he is the only candidate whose economic plan will be “made in the USA”—but part of the ad itself was made in Russia.

Eight seconds into Trump’s latest ad boosting his work on the economy, wordily titled “We built the greatest economy in world history and now we're doing it again!”, the spot cuts from standard images of factory workers in hard hats and children playing in fields to a conveyor belt with cardboard boxes digitally superimposed with the label “MADE IN USA.”

That animation, according to a review of Shutterstock, was actually made—along with “MADE IN IRAN” and “MADE IN UAE” versions—by Russia-based photographer and illustrator Novikov Aleksey.

The Trump campaign, which did not respond to a request for comment about the source of the footage, has previously run into trouble with the use of B-roll in its digital and on-air advertisements. In the same advertisement as the Russia-sourced animation, Trump uses footage of an Illinois steel plant that laid off hundreds of workers in the spring, according to a report in Vice News.

Earlier this month, an online advertisement that ran over the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and asked Americans to “support our troops” included stock footage and images of Russian fighter jets and military weapons. In August, the campaign used altered images of Democratic opponent Joe Biden to show him “isolated” in the “basement” of his home in Delaware

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Scott Bixby

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