Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign announced on Friday that they would be pulling all negative ads about President Donald Trump. The decision was made once it was confirmed that President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus.
Confirmed: Joe Biden's campaign is pulling all negative ads today, going all positive after the President Trump tested positive for COVID-19, a campaign aide tells CNN. This decision was made before the White House announced that Trump will move to Walter Reed.
— Sarah Mucha (@sarahmucha) October 2, 2020
NEWS: @JoeBiden is taking down his negative ads, going all-positive, per source familiar.
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) October 2, 2020
Decision was made *before* WH put out word Trump was going to Walter Reed
Even though Biden's campaign said they were pulling all of those ads, The Washington Free Beacon's Executive Editor Brent Scher found otherwise when he searched through Facebook's ad library. Scher discovered two health care ads the campaign was actively running.
A lot of praise for @JoeBiden campaign for pulling negative ads, but scan of Facebook ad library shows it’s not really true.
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) October 3, 2020
Screenshots of still active FB ads below talking about Trump taking healthcare and being purged from life—all currently active, all pretty negative. pic.twitter.com/eFUzxdoUPD
When I did a search of ads that were actively running on Facebook, the ad with "Shannon" was still actively being displayed on the social media platform.
Found another: https://t.co/vCeYlDHZdg pic.twitter.com/Irxz6KLnCi
— Beth Baumann (@eb454) October 3, 2020
At least if the campaign is going to claim they did a good thing and are civil by removing the negative ads, someone needs to thoroughly go through their active ads. It's really not that difficult.