By Nidia Cavazos
/ CBS News
Uvalde victims’ families settle lawsuit
Two years after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the Biden campaign released a new digital ad that hammers former President Donald Trump on gun control.
“We honor those we lost in Uvalde,” the ad says in text that appears over a black screen. As “Ave Maria” plays, the text continues, and an altar memorializing the 19 children and two teachers in the 2022 massacre appears and then transitions to photos of President Biden and first lady Jill Biden visiting Uvalde soon afterward.
“Joe Biden expanded background checks, and is fighting to ban assault weapons,” the text reads.
Over a video of a mouth speaking, the words “Donald Trump did nothing to keep us safe” appear.
The ad concludes with a final image of the Bidens at a Uvalde memorial and the words, “I’ll never forget, I’ll never stop fighting.”
The 30-second ad is part of the campaign’s seven-figure media ad buy for May targeting Latino voters. It will run in the battleground states of Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Nevada and will also include subtitles in Spanish.
This is the Uvalde ad:
“No family should have to experience the pain and trauma that families in Uvalde will continue to experience for the rest of their lives,” Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the Biden-Harris campaign manager said in a statement. “As guns remain the number one cause of death for young people in America, President Biden and Vice President Harris understand the urgency of this crisis and have brought bipartisan leaders together to deliver historic action to combat gun violence.”
It’s the latest effort by the Biden campaign to target Hispanic voters in key states where Latino voters are expected to play a critical role in determining the outcome of the election in November.
In 2020, President Biden won Arizona by less than 11,000 votes. This year, one in four Arizona voters will be Latino. The latest CBS poll shows Mr. Biden is currently trailing Trump by 5 points..
With six months left before the election, the Biden campaign has been ramping up its attacks on Trump.
On the same day the Uvalde ad was released, the campaign also dropped a new TV spot narrated by actor Robert De Niro. The ad “Snapped” set to run across battleground states, focuses on Trump’s past presidency as the Biden campaign intends to sway voters away from their political rival.
“We knew Trump was out of control when he was president,” the ad says. “Then he lost the 2020 election and snapped.” A series of phrases appear — “dictator,” “bloodbath,” “terminate the Constitution” — in an effort to paint a dark and disturbing picture of what a second term for Trump would look like.
The De Niro-narrated ad is part of the campaign’s strategy to ramp up its attacks in the month ahead of the first general election presidential debate, which is set for June 27, in Atlanta.
Here’s the De Niro ad:
Nidia Cavazos is a 2024 campaign reporter for CBS News.
