Hillary Clinton says voters face a choice about who we are as a country. | POLITICO Screen grab Clinton launches first general election ad

In her first ad of the general election, Hillary Clinton uses footage of Donald Trump mocking a reporter’s disability and inciting violence at campaign rallies to set up a contrast between the two parties’ presumptive nominees.

The ad, entitled “Who We Are,” is set to begin airing Thursday in some battleground states, but the campaign would not specify which ones or comment on the size of the ad buy.


In the one-minute-long spot, footage of Clinton looking presidential as she reviews a stack of briefing papers and descends from a plane that looks like Air Force One is spliced with clips of Trump inciting his crowds at campaign rallies. “I’d like to punch him in the face,” Trump says in one clip. In another, he tells the crowd, “Knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously.” And in a third clip -- which is also featured prominently in ads paid for by Priorities USA, the super PAC backing Clinton -- Trump lampoons a reporter’s disability, making exaggerated jerking movements with his arms.

In a voiceover, Clinton says voters face a choice about who we are as a country and asks, “Do we respect each other? Do we help each other? Do we stand together?”

In a speech on Monday in Cleveland, Ohio – Clinton’s first trip as she kicks off a travel schedule aimed at the general election battleground states -- the former Secretary of State is expected to unveil a similar message attempting to present voters with a stark choice between her own vision for a united country and a more divisive worldview presented by Trump.

Since Clinton’s evisceration of Trump at a speech in San Diego last week, the Democratic presumptive nominee has targeted him as unprepared and “temperamentally unfit” to be president. The new ad does not make any such claims overtly -- but it fits with the campaign's goal of trying to paint Trump as an abnormal Republican adversary.

Trump reacted to the ad on Sunday morning, calling it "false":



Clinton made a false ad about me where I was imitating a reporter GROVELING after he changed his story. I would NEVER mock disabled. Shame! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016