The Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago on Monday with a new ad that riffed on Donald Trump's criminal convictions, underscoring the sharp delineation between the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor. Harris previously served as San Francisco district attorney and California state attorney general before arriving in Washington, D.C. to serve in the Senate and later as President Joe Biden veep.
The ad, which played as an introduction to a speech by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., parodied the television crime drama, "Law and Order."
“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders," a narrator said, the words overlaid by a similar track to the iconic series set in New York.
“This is the story of Donald Trump,” the narrator continued, before alluding to several of the ex-president's high-profile legal quagmires. "His entire life, Trump has believed he's above the law. That no one would ever dare hold him accountable. He lies. He rips off workers. He sexually abuses women. He cheats in business. He cheated on his wife with a porn star, and paid her off so the American people wouldn't find out during an election."
"But in the criminal justice system, ordinary Americans have had the courage to find him accountable, time and time again. For the first time in history, we have a convicted felony running for president. And to take on this case, we need a president who has spent her life prosecuting perpetrators like Donald Trump."
"He tried overturning Georgia's free and fair election," the narrator added, followed by audio of Trump's now infamous 2020 phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the former president said he wanted to "find 11,780 votes" to overturn his loss of the state in the election.
"He's tried to escape any responsibility for instigating the January 6 attack on our Capitol," the ad observed. "And if elected, Trump has promised to overturn laws that would keep him accountable and exact retribution on anyone he considers an enemy, even warning of a 'blood bath' if he doesn't get his way. So, we the people have a chance to render our own verdict on Donald Trump. We are the jury he most fears. When we vote this November, we vote for justice, accountability, and the rule of law that keeps America free."
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Harris can be heard at the conclusion of the ad yelling to throngs of her supporters, "Do we believe in freedom?" The reference aligned closely with another freedom-related Harris campaign ad unveiled Monday, featuring Beyoncé's 2016 song "Freedom." Actor Jeffrey Wright narrates over patriotic images from D-Day, the Dust Bowl era, the Statue of Liberty, and an array of American families. “What kind of America do we want?” Wright asks. “One where we’re divided, angry, depressed? C’mon! We’re Americans! Fascism? We conquered it. The Moon? Landed on it. The future? Building it. Freedom? Nobody loves it more.”
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow in May dedicated an entire segment of her show to unpacking for her viewers how Trump and his fervent base of supporters could pose imminent threat to democracy.
"What you’re seeing here is actively and currently damaging the rule of law right now, because people are being intimidated and terrorized," Maddow said. "People who work in the legal system as these alleged crimes are adjudicated there are being harassed, threatened with firing, and intimidated and threatened. And it is happening in all the criminal cases that surround Trump.”
"This is damage to the rule of law and it is here already," the MSNBC host added. "When participating in the adjudications of alleged crimes by a political figure and his followers bring you death threats — the rule of law has been bent, the rule of law has been broken."
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