Vice President Kamala Harris will cue up debate night by running an ad featuring criticism of former President Donald Trump from his vice president, Mike Pence, and other top deputies who “knew him best.”
Titled “The Best People,” the one-minute ad will air on Fox News ahead of the presidential debate in Philadelphia late Tuesday between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump on ABC.
The ad’s premise is simple: It shows media clips of four people who served alongside Mr. Trump during his 2017-2021 presidency. And the reviews aren’t pretty.
“Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” Mr. Pence says in a clip from a television interview.
Former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper says Mr. Trump cannot be trusted with national secrets again, and former National Security Adviser John R. Bolton says Mr. Trump would “cause a lot of damage” if he returned to the White House.
The ad shows a clip of retired Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, giving a speech in which he says: “We don’t take an oath to a king or queen, pirate or dictator. We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”
A narrator says Mr. Trump had promised to hire the “best people,” only to have those same people warn America.
“Take it from the people who knew him best. Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy,” the narrator says.
The ad is an effort to get under Mr. Trump’s skin ahead of debate night by insulting Mr. Trump’s fitness for office.
Mr. Trump frequently criticized the persons featured in the ad as inept or out of touch with today’s challenges or politics. He faulted Mr. Bolton over failed negotiations with North Korea, seeing him as a war-mongering relic of past administrations, and fell out with Mr. Pence over his vice president’s refusal to return the certification of the 2020 election to the states.
Mr. Trump’s relationship with Gen. Milley was particularly acrimonious.
They sparred over the role of the military amid race-related protests in 2020, and Mr. Trump chastised Gen. Milley for allegedly going behind his back to reassure China that Mr. Trump wouldn’t threaten the nation in the waning days of his presidency.
“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social in September 2023. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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