Fox News is refusing to run an ad from a progressive group that highlights how President Trump will benefit from his tax cut plan.
The ad — part of a six-figure buy by Not One Penny, a group devoted to working toward ensuring that millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations don’t receive “even one penny in tax cuts” — notes that while Trump claims to “tell it like it is,” he refuses to explain why he’s championing a tax plan that contains more than a billion dollars of goodies for his family.
“When it’s time for Trump to explain why his tax plan gives a big cut to the wealthy — including lucrative breaks for golf course owners and cuts for rich heirs, all worth more than a billion dollars for Trump and his family — why is this president suddenly at a loss for words?” the ad’s narrator asks.
BREAKING
New TV AD exposes the truth about GOP tax plan: it benefits Trump family & people like him. pic.twitter.com/2P0HlODEbc
— Jesse Ferguson (@JesseFFerguson) November 27, 2017
According to Politico, Fox News says it’s refusing to run the ad because it features a Trump impersonator, and the network has a policy against them. But if that’s true, the policy must be relatively new — in 2011, Fox Business Channel prominently featured an Obama impersonator during a special broadcast featuring John Stossel.
In a statement, Tim Hogan, spokesperson for Not One Penny, said that “[n]o matter how desperately President Trump denies the reality — and his friends try to cover up the truth — they can’t escape the fact that this tax plan is a $1 billion break for the Trump family at the expense of the middle class.”
Instead of trying to justify a tax plan that will raise taxes on millions of middle-class Americans while skewing 62 percent of its benefits to the wealthiest Americans, Trump has been brazenly lying about it.
For instance, during his speech in favor of the Republican tax plan in Missouri on Wednesday, Trump falsely claimed that the Republican tax plan will “cost me a fortune… believe me.”
“This is not good for me,” he said. “I have some very wealthy friends — not so happy with me.”
Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns makes it hard to determine precisely how much he and his family stand to gain if the Republican tax plan becomes law, but recently analyses from NBC and the New York Times both found that the Trumps will save more than $1 billion. On Thursday, the Washington Post rated Trump’s claim that the tax plan will cost him “a fortune” as a “Four Pinocchio” whopper.
Fox News’ refusal to run the Not One Penny spot marks the second time in recent weeks that the network has suppressed a spot critical of Trump. “Earlier this month, the network refused to run a spot featuring activist billionaire Tom Steyer calling for Trump’s impeachment, shortly after Trump tweeted in response to the ad when it aired on Fox & Friends,” Politico notes.