President Donald Trump is standing up for America’s beloved statues — South America’s, that is.
Over the weekend, Trump’s reelection campaign ran Facebook advertisements pledging to “protect” the Christ the Redeemer statue — which is famously located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Daily Beast first reported the ads Monday. In all, the outlet tallied, the spots on Facebook and Instagram cost between $14,000 and $22,000. According to Facebook’s ad library, they were posted on Friday and made inactive sometime after that.
Trump has made a campaign issue of the “far-left fascism” behind activists’ push to remove statues of Confederate generals and others from public view.
“In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance,” Trump said in a speech at Mount Rushmore Friday night. “If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It’s not going to happen to us.”
The Facebook ads, which were posted on Trump’s political account as well as Vice President Mike Pence’s, were paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee comprised of Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.
