A pro-Trump nonprofit says it is spending $1 million to air a new pro-Trump ad that concludes with a little girl saying, “Thank you President Trump for letting us say ‘Merry Christmas’ again!”

America First Policies — a group including Trump’s digital and data director Brad Parscale, freshly-indicted former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, and former Mike Pence campaign advisers — says the “ad blitz” will begin on Christmas day.

The notion that saying “Merry Christmas” was in some sense prohibited under President Obama is, of course, a myth, as this supercut of the Obamas wishing people a Merry Christmas reveals. Nonetheless, Trump seems to have convinced himself that nobody said it during the Obama years — a period of time during which Trump rose to political prominence thanks to the racist conspiracy theory he pushed about Obama not actually being an American citizen.

What a convenient mistake: @BarackObama issued a statement for Kwanza but failed to issue one for Christmas. http://t.co/DodG53Rx — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2011

During a White House celebration of the Republican tax bill on Wednesday, Trump at one point remarked that “we can say ‘Merry Christmas’ again. People are saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again, and we like the sound.”

America First Policies’ new ad is called “Thank You, President Trump.” In addition to the little girl thanking Trump for purportedly bringing back “Merry Christmas,” other people thank the president for everything from “keeping my family safe” to “reminding us to stand for our national anthem” to “fixing our economy.”


The pro-Trump group’s million-dollar effort to bolster Trump’s image comes as his approval rating hits new lows. According to CNN polling, Trump’s approval rating his 35 percent on Tuesday — marking “the worst approval rating in a December of any elected president’s first year in the White House by a wide margin — and only the second time since the dawn of modern polling that a president’s approval rating sank under 50 percent at this point.”

CNN’s latest poll was conducted just before congressional Republicans approved the tax cut bill that Trump championed. That bill is referenced in America First Policies’ new pro-Trump ad, which features a man who appears to be in a workshop saying, “Thank you for cutting my taxes.”

But while working-class people are at best getting crumbs, the rich are making off like bandits. According to the Tax Policy Center, roughly 82 percent of the tax bill’s benefits will accrue to the richest one percent over time. As a result, the tax cut bill is about as unpopular as Trump — polling conducting just before it was passed showed that only 33 percent supported it, while 55 percent were opposed.

So regardless of how many times Trump says “Merry Christmas,” it’s doubtful whether the president’s first major legislative accomplishment will boost his popularity heading into the second year of his presidency.