NRSC ad featuring Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy | Screenshot
A day after Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy resigned from a domestic violence prevention agency board, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) announced an ad Wednesday that prominently features the Republican.
The 30-second ad is one of two independent expenditure ads the NRSC paid for targeting both Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.
The ad criticizes Harris, who is facing off against GOP nominee, former President Donald Trump, and Slotkin, who is competing against former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake), for immigration policies claimed to have made citizens unsafe.
“I’ve had the honor of serving in law enforcement for three decades,” says Murphy. “As sheriff, I see every day how illegal immigration has affected Michigan. I hold Kamala Harris and Elissa Slotkin accountable.”
The ad’s debut follows Murphy’s resignation Tuesday from the board of LACASA Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for victims of child abuse, domestic violence and sexual violence.
The organization said it had accepted Murphy’s voluntary resignation after the “distraction” that resulted from an Aug. 20 visit by Trump to the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in Howell, which had been billed as a “crime and safety” press conference.
Instead, the event featured a Trump campaign stump speech attacking Harris, President Joe Biden and Democrats in general on crime, border security, trade and foreign policy, with only a single question shouted at Trump at the end.
That question concerned criticism that his visit came on the heels of white supremacists marching through Howell chanting “We love Hitler. We love Trump,” to which he deflected answering, instead pointing to a 2021 visit to Howell by Biden.
Shortly after Trump’s visit to the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office, the state Bureau of Elections received two complaints against the both the sheriff’s office and Murphy regarding alleged violations of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act, namely that the visit illegally utilized public resources for a partisan political purpose. Those remain under investigation.
Further adding to the appearance of politicizing Trump’s visit is a video, posted that same day to his TikTok account, in which the former president poses in front of a Livingston County Sheriff’s patrol vehicle.
“We’re a nation in decline,” says Trump. “Nobody is safe. Absolutely nobody. We’re gonna be a strong nation again. We’re gonna be a safe nation again.”
Trump then holds up a pair of handcuffs.
“This is safe,” he says.
The video was recorded inside the sheriff’s office shed where the event was held.
BACK THE BLUE!
♬ original sound – President Donald J Trump
The campaign by the NRSC is part of a $100 million ad buy announced in June as part of an effort by the Republican Party to retake control of the chamber. The ads will air statewide on television and digital platforms.
“Elissa Slotkin and Kamala seem to care more about helping illegal immigrants than helping Michiganders who are struggling with rising prices,” said NRSC spokeswoman Maggie Abboud.
The ad featuring Murphy also included a short clip of Harris.
“We’re not gonna treat people who are undocumented across the border as criminals. That’s correct,” she says, quickly followed by Murphy.
“Harris and Slotkin have opened our borders to illegals, and then they reward them with tax taxpayer funded benefits. These liberal policies are a threat to families and taxpayers,” he says.
The clip of Harris is from a 2019 appearance on ABC’s “The View” when she was running as a candidate for the 2020 presidential nomination and was commenting on the controversial Trump administration “zero tolerance” policy that separated migrant children from their parents and detained them.
“What we cannot do is have any more policy like we have under this current president that is about inhumane conduct, that is about putting babies in cages, that is about separating children from their parents and we have got to have policy that is about passing comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway toward citizenship,” said Harris.
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