Politics

Senate Candidate Wears Noose Around Neck In Ad Bashing Rand Paul

[Youtube/Screenshot/Charles Booker]

Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
Font Size:

The Democratic candidate challenging Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul released an ad Tuesday in which he wears a noose in a bid to bash Paul for opposing a 2020 bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime.

Democratic nominee Charles Booker released the ad, which opens up with a noose hanging off a tree before switching to a noose hanging on a gallows in front of the Capitol Building. The ad then flashes to two still images: one of a man hanging, the other a flag that read “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday.”

The video then switches to Booker, who wears a suit with a noose wrapped around his neck.

“In a historic victory for our commonwealth, I have become the first black Kentuckian to receive the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate,” Booker said. “My opponent: the very person who compared expanded health care to slavery, the person who said he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act, the person who single-handedly blocked an anti-lynching act from being federal law. The choice couldn’t be clearer.”

“Do we move forward together or do we let politicians like Rand Paul forever hold us back and drive us apart. In November, we will choose healing. We will choose Kentucky,” Booker said as he takes the noose off and walks away. (RELATED: ‘Recipe For Disaster’: Rand Paul Defends Blocking Ukraine Military Aid Package, Takes Shot At John McCain)

Paul’s Deputy Campaign Manager Jake Cox said the ad was a “misrepresentation of the facts” in a statement to the Daily Caller.

“Dr. Paul worked diligently with Senators Booker and Scott to strengthen the language of this legislation and is a cosponsor of the bill that now ensures that federal law will define lynching as the absolutely heinous crime that it is. Any attempt to state otherwise is a desperate misrepresentation of the facts.”

Paul objected to a 2020 anti-lynching bill because he believed the language needed to be more succinct.

“We want the bill to be stronger,” Paul said, according to CNN. “We think that lynching is an awful thing that should be roundly condemned and should be universally condemned. I don’t think it’s a good idea to conflate someone who has an altercation where they had minor bruises with lynching.”

“If you’re gonna call something an anti-lynching bill, but you’re gonna have a new conspiracy charge for someone who has minor bruising, we don’t think that’s appropriate,” he reportedly continued. “And someone has to read these bills and make sure they do what they say they’re going to do rather than it be just a big PR effort, and then everybody else gets up in arms and wants to beat up anybody who wants to read the bill, and actually make the bill stronger.”

Paul supported the newest version of the bill after having worked with Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott to address his language concerns. The bill was passed unanimously and signed into law by President Joe Biden.