Trump blasts ‘rigged’ Clinton system in first general election TV ad

Donald Trump's campaign rolled out its first general election ad Friday, part of a buy totaling nearly $5 million in battleground states where he is currently trailing Hillary Clinton. Its message: Trump will keep the country safe, and Clinton will only make matters worse.

“In Hillary Clinton’s America, the system stays rigged against Americans,” a narrator intones over dark music and imagery. “Syrian refugees flood in. Illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes get to stay, collecting Social Security benefits, skipping the line. Our border open. It’s more of the same, but worse.”


As the ad shifts to Trump, the music turns upbeat and the imagery turns to border patrol and a hovering helicopter, and two families, including a husband embracing his wife.

“Donald Trump’s America is secure, terrorists and dangerous criminals kept out,” the narrator says. “The border secure. Our families safe. Change that makes America safe again. Donald Trump for president.”

The ad concludes with a photo of Trump giving a thumbs up, wearing his trademark red “Make America Great Again” cap. It will run in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania through Aug. 29 — though not, as the Trump campaign originally said, in Virginia.

According to POLITICO's Battleground States Polling Average, Clinton leads Trump by more than 6 percentage points across 11 swing states, 45.2 percent to his 39 percent. She also leads in each of the states where Trump is running ads: Florida (where she leads by 5.2 points), Ohio (2), North Carolina (4) and Pennsylvania (9).

Trump’s campaign highlighted the 30-second spot as a move that “further cements a very strong week for Mr. Trump and the campaign.” Trump this week has given speeches on combating the ideology of radical Islamic terrorism, gaining support from African-American voters and even expressing regret for his rhetoric.

“The new ad provides a stark comparison between Hillary Clinton’s reality in which Americans are victims of the rigged system in Washington that compromises our borders, jeopardizes our jobs, and flouts our laws, and Mr. Trump’s vision for our country in which we secure our borders and put American jobs and safety first,” the campaign said in a statement.

The Clinton campaign fired back later Friday with a line-by-line rebuttal of nearly every line in the commercial, citing various reporting and fact checks to bolster its argument.

“From his divisive rhetoric to his erratic efforts to alienate our allies to his dangerous plans, Donald Trump has made our country less safe already. He is temperamentally unfit and unqualified to be commander in chief. No misleading ad can change the fact that Hillary Clinton is the only candidate with the experience and judgment to lead the country and keep our families safe," deputy communications director Christina Reynolds said in a statement.

But for Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, the email was less a response and more of a "predictable screed."

"But we definitely are back in their heads," Conway tweeted.

Watch the ad:

