Radio and digital advertisements calling out Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis’ racist behavior, featuring actor Don Cheadle’s voice, have been launched in Jacksonville, Florida.
DeSantis is facing off against Democrat Andrew Gillum and has repeatedly been embroiled in racist scandals during his campaign. The five-figure campaign ads, launched by American Bridge have Cheadle going through those scandals in an effort to encourage voters to vote for Gillum. The radio spots are running on African-American radio stations in Jacksonville.
First, Cheadle points out DeSantis’ refusal to return campaign contributions from a donor who referred to former President Barack Obama as a “Muslim n****r” in a tweet. Then Cheadle addresses DeSantis’ role as the reported moderator of a racist Facebook group that targeted African-Americans, Muslims and survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The ad also touches on DeSantis’ support for the Three-Fifths Compromise, criticism of black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and telling voters in August to not “monkey this up” by voting for Gillum.
“I got a little compromise for you — how about we agree that you’re three-fifths ... Andrew already said it best. Take it away,” says Cheadle toward the end of the ads, which cut to the now-viral clip of Gillum saying, “I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.”
American Bridge spokesman Zach Hudson doubled down on this statement in a press release for the ads, saying, “If Ron DeSantis writes like a racist, and talks like a racist, then …”
For the duration of his campaign, Gillum has been the target of overt racism and not just at the hands of his competitor. Two extremely racist robocalls targeting Gillum were sent out in Florida by a white supremacist group in Idaho.
The calls featured an actor speaking in an exaggerated minstrel dialect and pretending to be Gillum, saying, “Well, hello there. I is the Negro Andrew Gillum, and I be asking you to make me governor of this here state of Florida.”
Representatives for DeSantis did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on the advertisements.