A Trump television ad shows Mexicans swarming over "our southern border."— Donald Trump on Monday, January 4th, 2016 in a television ad.

In a new television ad -- his campaign’s first -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump shows footage of dozens of people swarming over a border fence. But the footage isn’t as it seems.About halfway through the ad, a narrator says of Trump, "He'll stop illegal immigration by building a wall on our southern border that Mexico will pay for." Video footage shows dozens of people streaming across the border, as if they were ants fleeing an anthill.

The clear suggestion is that the footage is of the "southern border" between the United States and Mexico. But it’s not -- it’s 5,000 miles away, in a small Spanish enclave on the mainland of Morocco.

Our ruling

Trump’s television ad purports to show Mexicans swarming over "our southern border." However, the footage used to support this point actually shows African migrants streaming over a border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla, more than 5,000 miles away.

We rate the claim Pants on Fire.NBC News reported that Trump campaign manager put it more colorfully: "Asked about the video, Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told NBC News, ‘No sh-- it's not the Mexican border, but that's what our country is going to look like. This was 1,000 percent on purpose.’ "


 The ad makes no such clarification, and we believe that most viewers -- in the context of the ad and Trump's past statements -- would conclude that it shows the U.S.-Mexico border, not a border in Africa.

Our rating of Pants on Fire stands.
 

Last edited by DollyLongstaff (1/05/2016 7:12 am)