About This Ad

Transcript
I'm Dr. James Dobson, speaking to you as a private citizen. My wife Shirley and I have joined thousands of conservative pastors and laymen in endorsing Senator Ted Cruz for President. For us, the sanctity of human life and traditional marriage are non-negotiable. Ted has been relentless in defending the institution of the family. After Donald Trump and Marco Rubio announced that they would accept the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage, we knew we could not support them. Our decision was confirmed when they opposed Senator Cruz efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. I know Ted. He's a Christian family man of the utmost integrity. His wife Heidi will be the very first pro-life First Lady. With Justice Scalia's death, we need a President who will defend the Constitution and nominate conservatives to the high court. His name is Ted Cruz. I'm Ted Cruz and I approved this message.
Sponsor Type
Candidate Committee
Note

This ad claims that, if Ted Cruz were elected, Heidi Cruz would be the first "pro-life" first lady ever. PolitiFact rates the claim as "Mostly True": "Every first lady since since Roe vs. Wade has publicly expressed their support for a woman’s choice on abortion, including Nancy Reagan and Barbara and Laura Bush. But it’s hard to know if Heidi Cruz would be the first "pro-life" first lady ever." PolitiFact has also rated the claim that Trump and Rubio opposed Cruz’s "efforts to defund Planned Parenthood." The ruling: "Mostly False."

Air Count
41
Markets Aired In
9
Networks Aired On
First Aired On
11/21/2015 UTC
Last Aired On
04/29/2016 UTC
Embed Code
Learn More About This Ad On Archive.org
archive.org/details/PolAd_TedCruz_DonaldTrump_MarcoRubio_mxfm2

Download

About the Dataset

The Political TV Ad Archive, powered by the Internet Archive, is pulling together resources from a variety of sources to create an archive of political TV ads in key primary states. Each ad has its own canonical web page (sample here), and associated downloadable metadata. Some metadata are added by the Internet Archive; some generated via the media itself (such as count of ads, how many times an ad has aired, etc.); and some come from our partners.

First ‘pro-life’ first lady?
March 8, 2016

Cruz proudly hails wife Heidi Cruz’s anti-abortion views in an ad featuring James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family in Colorado who endorsed Cruz. Dobson said she "will be the very first pro-life first lady," in the ad, which aired mostly in Iowa before the caucuses. ... Every first lady since since Roe vs. Wade has publicly expressed their support for a woman’s choice on abortion, including Nancy Reagan and Barbara and Laura Bush. But it’s hard to know if Heidi Cruz would be the first "pro-life" first lady ever. We rate the claim Mostly True.

READ MORE

Ted Cruz levels flawed claim about Donald Trump opposing efforts to defund Planned Parenthood
March 16, 2016

Dobson said in Cruz’s ad that Trump and Rubio opposed Cruz’s "efforts to defund Planned Parenthood."

In the narrowest way, you could say Rubio opposed Cruz’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood by expressing misgivings about holding the government hostage to funding of a particular organization. But that's also misleading. Rubio, like Cruz, otherwise repeatedly voted to defund.

Trump, meantime, expressed support at the time for Cruz’s efforts. He later reversed course on that but he's been clear lately about wishing to defund so long as the group provides abortions.

We rate this claim Mostly False.

READ MORE