Donald Trump‘s Super Bowl LIV campaign commercial that featuredAlice Marie Johnson, the woman whoKim Kardashian Westhelped free from prison after serving 21 years for a nonviolent drug offense, is drawing criticism for the president.
The commercial, which ran during Sunday night’s game as an advertisment for Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, included an old clip of Johnson, 64, speaking to reporters after being released and crediting the president, 73, for her freedom.
“Alice Johnson was sentenced to serve life in prison for a nonviolent drug offense,” the commercial read. “Thanks to President Trump people like Alice are getting a second chance. Politicians talk about criminal justice reform. President Trump got it done. Thousands of families are being reunited.”
Trump also tweeted out the video: “I promised to restore hope in America. That includes the least among us. Together, let’s KEEP AMERICA GREAT!” he wrote.
“Anyone just realize how Kim K wasn’t recognized in the super bowl commercial about getting Alice Marie Johnson out of prison? Trump took all the credit,” one Twitter user said.
Wrote another, “I am not here for this BS Trump ad taking credit for @KimKardashian work with Alice Marie Johnson. Yes he had the final say but it was all thanks to Kim. #SuperBowl.”
Many also criticized Trump for using Johnson’s story as a political ad for the2020 election.
“Granting Alice Marie Johnson clemency: good! Using the fact that you granted Alice Marie Johnson clemency in a Super Bowl ad to try to get re-elected: tacky af,” saidMedia Matterseditor Parker Molloy.
Another wrote, “Trump actually put out a campaign ad taking all the credit for freeing Alice Marie Johnson. The ego!!! This yalls President?”
Other critics on Twitter took issue with all the things they said the ad left out, such as the Trump administration’s policy of separating families of migrants at the border and his controversial statements about white supremacists. “The gall and hypocrisy of this ad is hideous,” one userwrote.
Kardashian West first started campaigning for Johnson’spresidential pardonin 2018 after learning about the case online. Johnson was given a life sentence for a first-time nonviolent drug offense after she helped facilitate communications in a drug-trafficking case.
The star eventually met with Trump in Washington, D.C. todiscuss prison reform and sentencing. On June 6, 2019, Johnson was released from a federal prison in Aliceville, Alabama, where she had been serving her sentence for more than 20 years.
NBC News
“It became this mission that I just didn’t want to give up,” Kardashian West said of getting her legal team involved in Johnson’s casein aTodayinterview last year. “I think to some people it might seem like, ‘Okay, Kim made a phone call to the president.’ “
“Thank you is not big enough,” Johnson said of her gratitude for Kardashian West. “I think I have to walk my thank you out. I have to live it out, for her, for my family, for the supporters.”
And for Kardashian West, she said, “I hope maybe this inspires more people to talk to the people in power — that you can have an effect over them for the greater good of other people.”
source: people.com
