Trump launches first TV ad of general election

Amid his latest campaign shakeup, Donald Trump released his first television ad of the general election on Friday and, like much of his presidential campaign, the commercial focused on immigration.

Until Friday, the GOP nominee had yet to release a television ad, perplexing some observers as he slipped in the polls to Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, whose campaign has spent millions on ads. (Clinton’s team also released a new ad earlier in the day.)

The 30-second Trump spot, which the campaign said would air in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania for the next 10 days, is titled “Two Americas: Immigration” and aims to offer a stark contrast between Trump’s America and what the country would be like with Hillary Clinton as president.

“The system stays rigged against Americans,” a narrator warns over muted images of crowded refugee camps, and men being both arrested by Border Patrol agents and strolling freely through the street. “Syrian refugees flood in. Illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes get to stay, collecting Social Security benefits, skipping the line.”

As the narrator continues, claiming that Clinton’s White House would leave “our border open,” a citation quickly appears at the bottom of the screen for the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative, anti-immigration think tank, whose past reports have been deemed misleading by several leading nonpartisan immigration-research organizations as well as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In the ad, the words “border open” linger in large print above images of people riding atop a train and walking through what looks like the one of the many Homeland Security-sanctioned pedestrian ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border.

On the other hand, the ad continued, “Donald Trump’s America is secure.” The desaturated, foreboding scenes of lawlessness under Clinton then give way to brightly lit shots of helicopters patrolling the border and happy non-Hispanic-looking families. Red, white and blue banners declare “the border secure” and “our families safe.”

The commercial was released as the Trump campaign underwent its latest reorganization. Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort announced Friday that he would resign. Earlier in the week, Trump hired Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon as his campaign CEO and pollster Kellyanne Conway as his campaign manager.

The ad has already sparked a reaction from within the Clinton campaign, with press secretary Brian Fallon and deputy press secretary Jesse Ferguson taking to Twitter to dispute Trump’s claims.