An organization is taunting Donald Trump in a new ad that dares the former president to testify in his hush money trial in New York City — or "admit you're a coward."
The ad, created by the center-left group Third Way, began running Thursday and will hound Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, when he speaks Saturday at an National Rifle Association convention in Dallas and in New York City, Politico reported.
Titled "Coward," a narrator asks: "Donald, why won't you testify? After all, you believe only guilty cowards take the Fifth."
It then shows a clip of Trump saying, "Fifth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Fifth Amendment. Horrible," a reference to his comment that "if you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment" so you don't have to testify?
The 30-second clip ends with a dare: "Take the stand, Donald, or admit you're a coward."
"The mob takes the 5th. If you're innocent, why are you taking the 5th Amendment?"
— Third Way (@ThirdWayTweet) May 17, 2024
— Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/MA35gEQx5r
The five-figure ad buy will run "in all the places Trump will be," Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, told the New York Times.
"He has talked tough for years about how only guilty people and mobsters take the Fifth," Bennett said. "Now it appears he's going to do that himself, and we wanted to remind him of that and see if we could taunt him into testifying, frankly, because it might not go well for him if he did that."
Many observers believe it would be a mistake for Trump to testify in his defense. His comments are often unfettered, and he would be at risk of perjury if he contradicts anything on the stand that he has said under oath in the past.
Ultimately, the decision will be up to him.
The trial in Manhattan criminal court is expected to wrap up next week after the former president's defense team completes its cross-examination of Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer who has become the prosecution's main witness.
The defense has said it will consider over the weekend whether to put Trump on the stand.
Trump repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment when he was deposed by lawyers for New York Attorney General Letita James in 2023 as part of the investigation into business practices at the Trump organization.
In an interview earlier this month in Wisconsin, Trump said he would "probably" testify at the hush money trial.
"I would like to," he told Spectrum News 1, before assailing the judge presiding over the case involving hush money payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels.
