Donald Trump’s campaign apparently thinks stock photo models are a better look for its Facebook ads than actual Trump supporters would be. The campaign has made a series of Facebook ads featuring videos of people like “Tracey from Florida” and “T.J. from Texas,” but you have to read the very fine print to find out that it’s “actual testimonial, actor portrayal.” In other words, Tracey from Florida may have said the words in the video, but the woman in the video is not Tracey.
Video “Tracey,” in fact, comes from a French stock video company. “Thomas from Washington” is actually sourced out of Turkey. Some Trump supporter somewhere said things like “I could not ask for a better president” and “Although I am a lifelong Democrat, I sincerely believe that a nation must secure its borders,” but maybe they weren’t photogenic enough to turn into ads, or maybe the Trump campaign isn’t into doing the work of locating and prepping real people.
Judd Legum at Popular Information flagged the faked-up Facebook ads first.