Pro-Trump Ad Touting American Workers Uses Photos of Workers Overseas

Right for America, a super PAC financed by a handful of billionaires that supports Donald Trump, recently released an ad that promotes Trump’s various tax proposals and celebrates American workers, particularly those who put in overtime. It’s full of photos and videos supposedly showing overtime workers—the “hardest working citizens in our country”—including a welder, a truck driver, and a hospital worker. Yet many of these shots are stock footage or photos of workers in foreign countries, and the ad is misleading overall, leaving out Trump’s past opposition to compensating employees who work overtime.

The 30-second spot, which is being aired in swing states, hails Trump’s vow to end taxes on Social Security, tips, and overtime pay. Not surprisingly, it avoids fundamental facts about these proposals. Budget experts have pointed out that eliminating taxes on Social Security would lead to Social Security and Medicare becoming insolvent earlier than what’s now forecast and increase the national deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Suspending the tax on overtime would cost $1.7 trillion over a decade. Ending taxes on tips is not likely to help most workers who depend on tips—many are low-income earners who don’t pay much in taxes—and could cause an assortment of problems.

There are two ridiculous aspects to the ad: The depiction of Trump as a champion of overtime workers and its incorporation of images of non-American workers. When Trump was president, his administration cut back a rule proposed by the Obama administration to compel businesses to provide overtime compensation to about 4.1 million workers. The Trump Labor Department rule covered only 1.3 million, screwing nearly 3 million American workers. The business community had fought fiercely against the Obama proposal, and Trump came to its rescue. As ABC News put it in a headline, “New overtime rules a ‘win for corporate executives,’ economists say.”

And as a businessman, Trump has been no champion of overtime workers. At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, last month, Trump discussed his experience as a businessman with overtime. “I know a lot about overtime,” he said. “I hated to give overtime.” He recalled that he would employ new workers to replace those who were supposed to work overtime. “I shouldn’t say this,” he added, “but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay. I hated it.”

Trump’s refusal to compensate workers and contractors has been widely documented. In 2016, USA Today reported that Trump’s companies had been “cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data.” In 2019, the Washington Post broke the story that employees at the Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Briar­cliff Manor, New York, were forced to work without pay after they clocked out. It was called “side work.” The Trump Organization denied this happened.

In addition to the misleading substance of the ad, the spot features slow-mo, heroic-ish imagery of supposedly American workers. But in several instances, these are not Americans but overseas workers. A photo of a welder comes from a stock image taken by a photographer in the Netherlands and available (at a low price) on a Portuguese site. Footage of a delivery man on a bicycle traces back to a stock image company in Thailand and was also available on the Portuguese site. Video of a woman dressed in surgical garb—she’s a doctor or a nurse—was produced by a Ukrainian company. And a clip of a chef in a kitchen is from a video made by a Spanish production company.

The creators of the Right for America spot could not be bothered to find real Americans for the ad.

Right for America is funded by a small group of billionaires who are pals with Trump. Its biggest backers are Ike Perlmutter and his wife Laura, who together have kicked in at least $20 million. He’s a former CEO of Marvel Entertainment and has a reputation as an eccentric tycoon who eschews being photographed. Other major donors include venture capitalist Douglas Leone, a former managing partner of Sequoia Capital; Robert Book, a co-vice chair of the board of Axxes Capital; and trash hauling magnate Anthony Lomangino. The Perlmutters and Lomangino are members of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club. The PAC is run by Sergio Gor, a friend of the Trump family once nicknamed the “Mayor of Mar-a-Lago.”

Right for America is just one of several billionaire-funded PACs that in the final weeks of the election are flooding TV, radio, and social media in swing states with ads to help Trump. According to Axios, it has booked about $40 million in ads through Election Day. And the New York Times reported that it has spent $500,000 to run this spot in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona and $360,000 to air a Spanish-language version, mostly in Arizona.

This ad, which shows video of Trump returning to his feet after a gunman fired at him at a campaign rally in July, claims that “for too long no one in Washington has been looking out for” overtime workers and declares Trump is the one man who will. It’s rich that billionaires are spending so much money to convince voters that Trump is an advocate for hard-working toilers when he has shafted them as a businessman and as a president. Their pitch is as phony as the stock footage used to sell it.