Progressive group launches huge ad campaign to oppose Trump's Treasury nominee

President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks have been a series of unqualified and unmitigated disasters. And former Goldman-Sachs partner and Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is a particularly ripe target for ratcheting up opposition and resistance.

The progressive advocacy organization Allied Progress has launched a six-figure ad buy in Arizona and Nevada that focuses on Mnuchin’s foreclosure profiteering and status as a Wall Street insider who raised millions for Trump’s election effort:

The ads target Senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Dean Heller (R-NV), and employ the effective strategy of putting the lie to Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp,” while highlighting Mnuchin’s record of vulture capitalism. Allied Progress executive director Karl Frisch summarized the campaign in a statement:

“Donald Trump promised he would hire the best to serve in his administration, but instead he’s picked a former Goldman Sachs executive who made millions when his own bank foreclosed on the family homes of thousands of hard-working Americans,” said Allied Progress executive director Karl Frisch. “Arizona and Nevada were hit particularly hard by the foreclosure crisis that Steven Mnuchin and his Wall Street buddies helped to create — and profited from. Senators Flake and Heller have a simple choice: will they stand with Mnuchin and Goldman Sachs or with their constituents who were brutalized by Wall Street greed during the Great Recession?”

The ads have begun to generate media attention, and could benefit from some of the “earned media” that Trump received during the presidential campaign. The Wall Street Journal notes that Heller and Flake are particularly ripe targets:

Both Sens. Heller and Flake criticized Mr. Trump for some of his conduct during the presidential campaign, and both face re-election campaigns in 2018 in states with rapidly growing Latino populations. Both states were hit particularly hard with foreclosures during the financial crisis.

Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) came out in opposition to Mnuchin’s pick early, but this ad campaign is well-timed to take advantage of widespread reporting on the foreclosure skeletons in Mnuchin’s closet, and the attention that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and others are generating by vowing to fight Mnuchin’s confirmation.

Clearly, in seeking to drive a wedge between Trump and Senate Republicans whose constituents have been harmed by the policies of Trump’s nominee, the campaign is a wise step in the right direction for the resistance to Trump.