Listen to the two-beat sound at the very end of the clip. Reminiscent of the famous "doink-doink" from NBC's" Law & Order," no?
Viewers would be forgiven for thinking that the ad airing on CNN's New Day this morning was indeed a promo for a TV crime show. Or a new version of All The President's Men. Or might it have been an anti-Trump attack ad from the DNC?
It's not until the New York Times logo appears at the very end that it's seen to be a commercial for the newspaper, making the explicit commercial pitch ["the truth is worth it"] for an investigative attack on President Trump's finances.
It opens with an unflattering photo of Fred Trump, the President's father, and proceeds, through a series of quick cuts of financial documents, to its condemnatory conclusion: "that's when we realized, that's fraud."
Hey—didn't anyone tell the Times that you're not supposed to kill the suspense by giving away the conclusion in the trailer? Not that there was ever any doubt as to where the Times would go with its reporting.
The actual story in this ad -- posted on October 2, 2018 -- also reads like a Democratic opposition research report:
President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.
But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.
Here's the ad transcript.
New York Times
TV commercial--Trump finances investigative reporting
8/13/19
VOICE OF PRESIDENT TRUMP: I got a very, very small loan from my father.
VOICE OF PRESIDENT TRUMP: I got a very, very small loan from my father.
[On screen: Search Public Trump Documents]
VOICES: You gotta start somewhere . . . I'm a reporter from the New York Times . . . bank statements . . . tax returns . . . thousands of copy records . . . 1995, showed that he was bleeding money . . . go through it all, understand it all . . . Holy!
[On screen: Puzzle Together Pieces to Find
Find Possible Tax Fraud
Find Possible Federal Crimes
Find $400 Million Dodged
Find Trump Not Self-Made ]
VOICE OVER: Number by number, brick by brick . . . that's when we realized, that's fraud.
TRUMP: I built this empire. I did it by myself.
GRAPHIC: The truth takes rigor. The truth is worth it. The New York Times. Subscribe now.
