CNN airs ‘God made Trump’ ad in full — then former Trump aide points out what the network may have just done

BS BULLETIN:

CNN aired a taxpayer-funded Trump administration ad declaring “God made Trump” during Kasie Hunt’s Friday program.
Hunt reacted with disbelief and said the government had crossed “some sort of Rubicon” by paying for the spots.
Former Trump communications director Mike Dubke then suggested CNN may have just given the ad the free exposure Trump’s team wanted.

CNN spent part of Friday afternoon examining the Trump administration’s taxpayer-funded advertising campaign.

Then it aired one of the ads in full.

The spot, titled “God Made Trump,” uses the cadence of a sermon to portray President Donald Trump as a leader chosen for an extraordinary moment.

“So God made Trump,” the narrator says, before describing someone willing to confront “the fake news,” “Marxists” and other political adversaries.

When the ad ended, CNN host Kasie Hunt appeared stunned.

“Go to church on Sunday,” Hunt said, before noting that Christians are taught that God made everyone in his image.

Then came the larger objection.

“The government is paying to air these ads,” Hunt said, asking CNN Washington bureau chief David Chalian whether the country had crossed “some sort of Rubicon.”

The administration has produced at least 13 campaign-style spots as part of a multimillion-dollar government advertising effort promoting Trump and his policies. The White House has defended the ads as public-service announcements.

Some of the material focuses on the military, Iran, Venezuela and a UFC event hosted at the White House. Others focus much more directly on Trump himself.

The campaign has drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans over the use of taxpayer money for presidential promotion.

But former Trump White House communications director Mike Dubke noticed something else about CNN’s segment.

After Hunt played the ad, Dubke suggested that CNN may have done exactly what Trump’s team wanted.

He noted that the clips obtained by CNN had been stored in a Dropbox account and said it was possible the material had been made easy for reporters to find precisely because news organizations would then air it while discussing the controversy.

“If it was me and I wanted this ad to be aired for free, this would be a perfect way to do that,” Dubke said.

Hunt acknowledged the political term for that phenomenon: “Earned media coverage.”

The administration had already purchased thousands of television placements across broadcast and cable networks. Ad-tracking estimates cited by Mediaite put spending on three of the ads at at least $2.87 million, although the exact amount is unclear because the spots are classified as public-service announcements rather than conventional political advertising.

And now CNN had given “God Made Trump” one more airing. This one came with a panel discussion attached.

MY QUICK TAKE

Political consultants have spent about sixty years learning one lesson television keeps forgetting: If you spend five minutes telling America how outrageous somebody’s message is, but first play the message for everybody, you have still played the message for everybody.

Richard Nixon understood television. Reagan mastered television. Bill Clinton survived television. Trump figured out something slightly different: Make television angry enough and television will frequently do the distribution for you.

There is a legitimate argument over whether taxpayers should be paying for presidential self-promotion. That is a real story.

But Dubke’s point is the delicious part.

CNN apparently found an ad it considered so extraordinary that viewers simply had to see it.

So viewers saw it.

For free.

Somewhere, an advertising executive just felt a disturbance in the Force.