Haley Campaign Press Release - DeSantis Campaign Earns Four Pinocchios

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Another day, another lie from Ron DeSantis.

First, Ron DeSantis ran a slew of false attack ads against Nikki Haley that backfired against him. Then, a fistfight nearly broke out among members of DeSantis' super PAC over the ads' ineffectiveness. Then, DeSantis launched another super PAC to attack Haley. Now, the Washington Post deemed the latest DeSantis attack another "falsehood."

DeSantis PAC snips and clips its way to falsehood in attacking Haley

Analysis by Glenn Kessler

Read the full piece here

The Pinocchio Test

This ad is one of those reasons many people dislike politics. The ad takes a sweet story that Haley had told often - that Clinton encouraged her to run for office by telling an audience that women need to ignore the naysayers - and twists it so that it sounds like she is a liberal Hillary worshiper. Some viewers might even get the impression Haley is talking about multiple encounters with Clinton, rather than attending a single lecture two decades ago.

In reality, when Haley tells this story, she always notes that she is Clinton's ideological opposite. Those caveats are airbrushed out of this ad. The ad also gives the false impression that Haley spoke directly to Clinton about running. On top of that, even a television interviewer has his words clipped - and Haley's response is left on the cutting room floor.

All told, in just 30 seconds, all four quotes in the ad are snipped in misleading ways. That may be a record. Ordinarily, we might judge this a Three Pinocchio ad - after all, it is correct that Haley was inspired to run for office because of something Clinton said - but the level of misleading clips is so over the top that Fight Right - or should we say Fight Wrong? - earns Four Pinocchios.