Russia, Russia, Russia!
Russia seems to loom over just about everything election-related these days.
House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy released a new ad Monday defending Donald Trump while he remains the subject of an impeachment investigation and the 2020 general election draws ever closer.
McCarthy’s ad portrays Trump as someone who has shown the ability to get elected and achieve results in office, despite having many people try to upend him.
What if I told you…
⇒ He won the election.
⇒ He spoke for millions who didn’t have a voice.
⇒ Despite their obstruction, he is still getting things done for the American people. pic.twitter.com/ZuVq1Jl9RG [1]— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) November 25, 2019 [2]
One criticism Trump hears from his opponents is that he’s either willingly or unwittingly a pawn of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government is widely believed to have interfered in 2016’s election.
And it’s likely to come up more often as the election approaches.
So with that in mind, some eagle-eyed observers, like CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, spotted stock footage that seems to have been shot in Russia [3] in the McCarthy ad. The congressman’s team may designate someone to check the location of images going forward.
A little on the nose the stock footage used here was Russian. pic.twitter.com/FYhgdF3DvL [4]
— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) November 25, 2019 [5]
Although it appears McCarthy used other countries in addition to Russia.
Like, how about Italy and the Tuscan countryside?
opening shot is also of Tuscany pic.twitter.com/ivQbXQz8Ok [6]
— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) November 25, 2019 [7]
And that midwestern farmer you see…he’s not in the US, he’s in Israel:
Guy in the middle is stock footage from Israel. pic.twitter.com/7086njyz87 [8]
— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) November 25, 2019 [9]
A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination in 2016, McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post [10]. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher was a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.