The Trump-aligned America First Policies group released an ad Tuesday featuring Obama’s chief of border patrol Mark Morgan to pressure Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) to back full funding of President Donald Trump’s border wall. “We need more resources, we need the wall,” Morgan said in the ad.
America First Policies, a conservative non-profit organization that advocates for Trump’s America First agenda, launched a new digital and broadcast operation on Tuesday through Friday in Rep. Cartwright’s district pressuring him to support legislation that would provide full funding of the border wall. The ad features Morgan, former President Barack Obama’s chief of border patrol who discusses the chaotic and insecure nature of American’s southern border.
“We need more resources, we need the wall,” Morgan said in the ad.
Alex Titus, a spokesman for America First Policies, said in a press release Tuesday:
Seasoned law enforcement officials like Mark Morgan have been clear from the start of this debate: walls work. Rep. Cartwright should start listening to the experts and his constituents who want him to stop playing partisan politics and support full funding for a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.
America First Policies will spend roughly $80,00 for television ads and $50,00 for digital ads.
The ad serves as a broader effort by the conservative non-profit to push for Congress to secure America’s southern border. America First Policies has spent approximately $1.2 million during the border wall fight.
Pennsylvania serves as a crucial state for Republicans for the 2020 presidential campaign and has many districts that might help Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives.
Congressman Cartwright holds one of the few dozen Democrat districts that President Trump won during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump won the eighth district of Pennsylvania (Cartwright’s district) by nearly ten points in 2016.
Cartwright started his fourth term in Congress this January.
A poll released in January found that 52 percent of Pennsylvanians in Democrat-controlled districts believe that the “current situation at the border between the United States and Mexico represent a national security threat to the US.”
Fifty-three percent of those polled also support building a border wall or barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, while 43 percent oppose the idea.
Sixty-one percent approve of President Trump’s position on border security, compared to 35 percent who disapprove.
Congressman Cartwright has reportedly flip-flopped on the border wall issue. In October 2018, he told the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, “We have to secure our borders. There should be heavy fines and stricter penalties for offenders. I also favor building a wall where appropriate, but not where mountain goats can’t climb.”
However, on Fox News last week Cartwright called Trump’s effort to secure the border a quest to “fulfill some political stump speech.”
In response, Pennsylvania Republican Communications Director Jason Gottesman called out Cartwright’s weak border security stance.
Gottesman said last week, “Congressman Matt Cartwright is turning his back on the people of northeastern Pennsylvania by flip-flopping on his campaign-season immigration positions and no longer supporting border security, including the building of a border wall.”
“Congressman Cartwright apparently only thinks it appropriate to say what is convenient to who he is pandering to, saying one thing to his constituents and another thing to Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic base,” Gottesman added.
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