Just in case anyone missed it, Joe Biden’s campaign ran a two-minute ad during “Tucker Carlson Tonight” last night—and the communications folks at Fox News have been pinging the media this morning to flag that fact. OK, sure, we’ll take the bait.
“Keep Up,” as Team Biden has titled the commercial (below), aired during Carlson’s Republican National Convention coverage. In fact, it ran during a speech by White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Dan Scavino, right before 9 p.m. ET. In other words, Fox News monetized Scavino’s speech by preempting a part of it.
Though various organizations, including The Lincoln Project, have occasionally been running anti-Trump ads on Fox News as a form of psych ops—to annoy and provoke the Fox News watcher-in-chief—“Keep Up” is relatively low-key in its anti-Trumpism and seems to have actually been directed at Fox News viewers in general.
“Some people are always in a hurry,” an announcer says as we see images of Biden hurrying about. “They run when they could walk, race up steps when others take it slow.” Cue a widely shared clip of Biden bounding up a ramp at a West Point graduation ceremony—plus a quick montage of Biden excelling at stair-climbing—followed by an also widely shared clip of President Trump struggling to descend the same ramp. “When Joe Biden’s president, America is just going to have to keep up.” (Sounds exhausting.)