During her campaign, Hillary Clinton has often credited her mother with teaching her to call out bullies. Now, a new ad from Clinton’s presidential campaign connects the dots, depicting her Republican opponent Donald Trump alongside some of the most iconic bullies in American pop culture.
“Bully: A blustering, overbearing person who puts down or intimidates others,” reads the ad, escalating the war of words that brought American voters terms like ”braggadocious“ and “deplorable.”
The ad skips any reference to hot-button political issues, instead illustrating “bully” with familiar clips from American pop cinema. It features images and quotes from odious characters like Scott Farkus from A Christmas Story, Biff Tannen from Back to the Future, Johnny Lawrence from The Karate Kid, Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Mick from Teen Wolf and Regina George from Mean Girls.
Similar-sounding clips of Trump are cut into the medley: ”Sit down!” Trump orders to someone in the ad. Further in, he is shown deriding someone as “like a little baby,” and mocking a disabled reporter.
Clinton’s campaign made the comparison explicit on Twitter:
The Trump campaign responded as it has done with past attacks, by accusing Clinton of being the real bully.
“Hillary Clinton should look in the mirror on this one,” Jason Miller, Donald Trump spokesperson, told CNN, adding that ”Clinton bullied Monica Lewinsky so badly she started a foundation to help other victims of bullying.”