According to a report from Punchbowl News, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign shelled out $1.5 million for an ad created by Fox News host Sean Hannity that was so bad it only ran on Hannity’s show before being consigned to the dustbin of history out of embarrassment.
As Punchbowl reports, the backstory on the ad is revealed in a new book on the Trump campaign from the Wall Street Journal’s Michael Bender that states the ad, “Swamp creature,” was derisively called the “Hannity ad” by Trump staffers who thought it was awful and “over-the top.”
Punchbowl summarizes, “Multiple internal campaign emails referred to the spot simply as ‘Hannity.’ Another referred to it as the ‘Hannity-written’ spot. ‘POTUS has not yet approved, but Hannity has,’ read one email. ‘Hannity said this is our best spot yet,’ another campaign aide wrote…Inside the campaign, the spot was mocked mercilessly—mostly because of the dramatic, over-the-top language and a message that seemed to value quantity over quality.” Continue reading.