CNN parent refuses to run Trump ads over election fraud claims: report

CNN’s parent company, WarnerMedia Inc., rejected two ads from President Trump’s reelection campaign that contained baseless allegations of widespread election fraud, Bloomberg reported Monday.

An unidentified source told the news outlet that claims made in the ads could not be substantiated.

A statement from the Trump campaign obtained by Bloomberg indicated that the ads, meant to “inform viewers of the widespread corruption that occurred in the 2020 election,” would run on unspecified national news networks. A tracking firm, Advertising Analytics, told Bloomberg it had no record of the ads appearing on any of the major networks.

The Trump campaign and WarnerMedia spokespeople did not immediately return requests for comment from The Hill.

The president and his allies have continued to make claims about voter fraud in the weeks following President-elect Joe Biden’s victory last month. Legal efforts to stop the certification of individual states’ results failed repeatedly prior to Monday’s Electoral College vote, which formalized Biden’s win.

Trump vowed early Tuesday to continue his baseless claims of election rigging in a tweet declaring: “Much more to come!”

CNN rejected an ad from the Trump campaign in late October, with WarnerMedia stating at the time that a clearance team had pointed out unsubstantiated claims about Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“WarnerMedia Commercial Clearance has not accepted America First Action’s advertisement ‘We Are America’ for its networks as the ad does not meet its commercial clearance standards,” the company stated at the time. “Specifically, the ad asserts that Biden will raise taxes on the middle class. That claim is not adequately substantiated and has been judged false by independent fact-checkers. The advertisement also mischaracterizes Nancy Pelosi as a socialist.”