Obama, Biden Have Same Word for GOP Super PAC Ad

'Despicable'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 27, 2020 7:03 AM CST
Obama Not Cool With Voice Being Used in Anti-Biden Ad
Then-President Obama walks toward Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Nov. 7, 2016.   (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Barack Obama has remained relatively quiet on the political scene in the years since he left the Oval Office—but he's voicing his displeasure with an ad attacking his former VP. CNN reports that the law office representing Obama sent a cease-and-desist letter Wednesday to a GOP super PAC demanding it stop airing the ad, which uses words from Obama's 1995 memoir. Fox News details the 30-second ad by the Committee to Defend the President, which juxtaposes Obama's voice—taken from his audiobook Dreams From My Father—discussing such things as police brutality, lack of jobs and housing for black Americans, and "plantation politics," all while showing claims about Biden's record on racial issues on the screen.

Fox Business notes that, while the implication is that Obama is talking about Biden, the excerpt is actually lifted from a decades-old conversation Obama was recalling with a barber about Chicago politics. Obama has stood firm in not publicly endorsing any of the Democratic presidential contenders, spokeswoman Katie Hill said Wednesday, per CNN. However, Hill notes, the ad is a "despicable" attempt to influence minority voters in South Carolina to stay home "by taking President Obama's voice out of context and twisting his words to mislead." Hill adds that TV stations shouldn't play the ad and help "bad actors" who want to "sow division." A Biden rep also uses the word "despicable." The super PAC's response on Facebook Wednesday to Obama's demand: "Good luck with that!" (More Barack Obama stories.)

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