Hakeem Jeffries Launches Ad Campaign Targeting Trump's Economic Claims Ahead of Midterms

Hakeem Jeffries has one question after President Donald Trump offered to pay every American $5,000 if Republicans hold the House and Senate: Are you ready for some payback?

The House minority leader and would-be speaker launched a five-figure ad buy to appear across digital platforms and “specifically an NFL focused audience,” according to a release from Jeffries’s team. The ad comes as the Los Angeles Rams will play against the San Francisco 49ers on Netflix during the first week of the NFL.

The first night of the convention played parallel to the first game of the NFL season, which was a Super Bowl rematch between the New England Patriots and defending champions the Seattle Seahawks.

The ad features the president talking about talking about how the United States has entered a “golden age,” under his presidency.

“Look around,” Jeffries narrates in the ad. “Grocery prices up. Gas up. Health insurance premiums — up in some cases a thousand dollars or more.”

Jeffries’s ad comes less than two months before the midterm elections in November. Republicans have 218 seats in the House of Representatives while Democrats have 214. An Economist/YouGov poll showed that Democrats have a seven-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, which determines if voters will pick a generic Democrat or Republican for Congress.

Polling shows voters increasingly do not trust the president with the cost of living and the rising cost of gas amid the war in Iran, which Jeffries does not highlight in his ad.

Jeffries’s ad features Trump with Elon Musk and with leaders from Saudi Arabia while saying that the wealthy have benefited from Trump’s presidency before mentioning the midterm convention.

“Republicans party in Dallas today without a care about your tomorrow,” he said. That's not a golden age. That's a shakedown.”

Trump bragged on Thursday that his midterm convention, an unconventional choice given the president’s party typically loses the majority in a midterm election, beat the first night of NFL football despite no audience metrics being made available.

“It was really something, streaming all over the place, and really big numbers, despite going up against the NFL,” Trump said early Thursday. “The overall numbers beat the NFL.”