George Conway group hits Trump for response to protests in new ad

An anti-Trump GOP super PAC co-founded by George Conway, a D.C.-based attorney married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, is criticizing President Trump for his response to the nationwide protests over George Floyd’s death. 

In an ad released Wednesday, the Lincoln Project accused Trump of turning Washington into a “war zone” with his response to the demonstrations. 

“When Donald Trump came out of hiding this week, he didn’t do it to bring us together or heal the nation. He wasn’t there to offer words of calm and comfort. Instead, he became what we always feared, evoked the worst of our past, threatened our governors and states,” the narrator of the 60-second ad says. 

The ad hits Trump over his threat to deploy troops to states if governors failed to quell protests, with the narrator saying he ordered soldiers to “turn against Americans.” And it piles on criticism he’s received for a Monday photo-op at a D.C. church, which came after the area had been aggressively cleared of demonstrators by the police.

He “used churches and the holy Bible as political props. He didn’t invoke the lord to give us wisdom but to boost his polls,” the narrator says. 

“Washington transformed into a war zone for this coward. This is a time for choosing: America or Trump,” the narrator adds. 

The Hill reached out to the Trump campaign for comment. 

Democrats have widely criticized Trump for his threat to deploy troops and for his overall handling of the protests emerging nationwide over Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody. Some Republicans have also pushed back on Trump’s call to deploy troops. 

Last month, Trump criticized the Lincoln Project after it released an ad attacking his response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying the members of the group are “all losers.” 

After Trump’s criticism, the group said it raised more than $1 million in its largest single-day fundraising haul yet.