Trump deploys YouTube as his secret weapon in 2020

In 2016, Donald Trump’s campaign cracked the code on Facebook as a campaign tool — gaining an advantage over Hillary Clinton that was little noticed at the time but helped propel him to victory.

This time, the president is betting big on YouTube.

Most campaigns merely post their television spots on the site. Trump's YouTube channel, however, is a voluminous and unique collection of news, campaign ads and original web shows. Negative ads like "Don't let them ruin America" are paired with livestreamed series such as "Black Voices for Trump: Real Talk Online!" and "The Right View." The campaign uploads and then tests hundreds of short videos of the president speaking, while also posting news clips about things like the jobs report and the recent Serbia-Kosovo deal.

As Trump’s reelection effort pulled back on television advertising over the past month, it is pouring money and staff time into Google’s video platform. The campaign and its joint fund with the Republican National Committee have spent over $65 million on YouTube and Google — about $30 million of it since July. Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee joint committee, by comparison, have spent about $33 million on YouTube and Google during the entire campaign. (Google doesn’t provide an exact breakdown of the spending, but the Trump campaign said most of the money was for YouTube as opposed to search ads.)

With Biden ahead in the polls and quickly catching up in overall fundraising, Trump’s campaign sees YouTube as a potential soft spot in the Democrat's effort and is trying to press its advantage. Trump's campaign has also devoted significant resources to generating organic content on YouTube — regular videos uploaded by supporters as opposed to ones it pays to promote. In August, the campaign posted nearly 900 videos, while the Biden campaign posted just over 100.

Many digital strategists say YouTube's algorithm is more likely to recommend to viewers channels that are updated regularly with new content. “The name of the game with algorithms is to flood the zones,” said Eric Wilson, a veteran Republican digital operative. “The Trump campaign is putting on a master class in advertising according to algorithms — it just rewards the side that will produce more content.”

Still, the Trump campaign says it sees YouTube as an underappreciated campaign asset, much like it viewed Facebook four years ago. YouTube is the most popular online platform in the country: More than 9 of 10 Americans age 18 to 29 uses it, according to Pew surveys, a higher share than Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook. And the Trump campaign said it has seen engagement with its YouTube channel rise significantly among 25- to 34-year-olds.

Trump campaign advisers said Facebook was almost always a better campaign tool than YouTube in 2016 given its powerful targeting abilities and the lack of public scrutiny around them. But as Democrats have caught up on Facebook and the platform's every move is dissected, Trump officials say YouTube has been more effective at times than Facebook at mobilization, fundraising and persuasion in 2020. YouTube has also become increasingly influential force on the internet generally.

That’s why the campaign has ramped up its spending so dramatically on YouTube after spending less than $10 million on it in 2016.

Still, Republican and Democratic strategists disagree over whether the expensive gambit will work. Some Democrats see the frenetic activity on YouTube as more Kabuki theater rather than anything meaningful for November. Other Democratic digital strategists say the power of YouTube shouldn’t be underestimated but they argue that Trump’s investment comes from a place a weakness.

“The conditions on the ground — record unemployment and 180,000 Covid deaths — strongly favor Biden. So the Trump campaign has to create a more positive narrative to keep their supporters engaged and energized,” said Nu Wexler, a Democratic strategist who has worked at Google, Facebook and Twitter. "YouTube hype videos is one way to do that, though their content is completely at odds with reality.”

The Trump campaign's YouTube strategy is also the latest example of it becoming its own news publisher, bypassing the established media. Many of the campaign’s videos are short news clips or snippets of the press secretary’s daily briefing.

Trump's focus on the platform was apparent during the party conventions. The campaign spent millions to dominate YouTube's homepage during all four days of the Democratic convention. Its ad blitz drew 40 million views to five new ads, and 93 percent of the watch-time came from nonsubscribers. The campaign told POLITICO that its videos has 509 million views over the past four months.

Trump's campaign was also more aggressive in how it used the platform. Whereas Democrats uploaded the former vice president’s entire convention speech, Trump's campaign spliced his into 28 clips, each posted to YouTube. Republicans did the same thing with nearly every other major speech, while Democrats uploaded their speeches in full.

A Trump campaign official said the post-heavy approach is important for testing, and argued that the increased volume is better for users and for sharing.

Biden campaign officials downplayed the notion that Trump has outfoxed them on YouTube. “I don't see that as a silver bullet,” said Patrick Bonsignore, Biden's director of paid media. "It feels to me like their programs are more heavily weighted towards the direct response and fundraising side of things," rather than persuasion. In other words, communicating to Trump’s base rather than expanding it.

The recent investment has made Trump’s YouTube following the largest of any politician in the country, surpassing Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama, who had larger followings until a few months ago. Since April, the Trump campaign’s YouTube channel has grown from about 327,000 subscribers to nearly a million. Biden’s campaign, which spent a negligible amount on YouTube during the primary, has gone from 32,000 subscribers to 173,000. The campaign has been doing more on the platform recently and premiered a "socially distanced conversation" between Biden and Kamala Harris last week that had over 170,000 views.

Aware of the gap and the unlikeliness of closing it by Election Day, however, Biden’s campaign has been trying to appear on other popular social channels to leverage their large followings. Earlier this week, Harris made a cameo in a “Verzuz” battle between Brandy and Monica that streamed on Instagram and had over 4 million views. The Biden team also takes pride in the advertising it has been doing on less discussed platforms like Hulu and Pandora, where it believes it has an edge.

“I feel really confident that our program is more [varied] in terms of the number of places that we're running ads,” Bonsignore said. “That [YouTube] playbook is certainly not the whole game.”

The Biden campaign also has some backup on YouTube courtesy of the Priorities USA super PAC. It has spent an additional $5 million on the platform, much more than any Trump-affiliated super PAC so far.

Even with the tens of millions being thrown into the video platform, Republican and Democratic consultants are divided on how much of it will matter. Google last year began limiting political advertisers’ ability to target audiences: They can do so by age, gender and location, but are barred from using political affiliation or voter records to identify potential supporters.

Also, YouTube subscribers also haven’t always translated into wins at the ballot box — Sanders trounced Biden on YouTube, only to fall to him in the primary.

Still, the Trump campaign has already signaled it will maintain a robust presence on YouTube through November. The campaign has already reserved the most expensive digital ad space in the country on Election Day: YouTube’s homepage.

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Trump prepares a new fall offensive: Branding Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris is about to get the Trump treatment.

President Donald Trump has long excelled at ridiculing opponents and fomenting rivalries among those around him — from contestants on “The Apprentice” to his top aides inside the White House. Now he and his campaign are eyeing ways to drive a wedge between Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his younger, lesser-known running mate.

The president and his allies are plotting ways to portray Harris as a serious threat to the working-class voters whom Biden hopes to flip this fall, four years after many across the Rust Belt ditched Democrats to support Trump. They’re digging up her comments from Democratic primary debates, hoping they can use them to put her and Biden on defense. And despite Harris’ lukewarm relationship with some anti-establishment progressive groups, they are considering ways to cast her as a champion of the radical left by concentrating on positions she’s taken that run afoul of Biden-style centrism, one of the former vice president’s key appeals to swing voters.

“Kamala Harris is a California liberal who has already defined herself as a radical Democrat with her support of the Green New Deal, socialized medicine, fracking bans, tax raises and taxpayer-funded abortions,” said Courtney Parella, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign.

Some of those attacks will be dismissed as false or exaggerated. But the move to cast Harris as a socialist sympathizer and progressive stalwart comes as the Trump campaign struggles to deploy a similar playbook against Biden, who has mocked the president’s attempts to paint him as a “helpless puppet” of the radical left. Trump’s standing against Biden in polls has barely budged throughout the year despite nickname after nickname, a flurry of vicious tweets and numerous presidential press conferences that he’s used to assail his opponent.

“Do I look to you like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?” Biden asked the crowd on Monday at an event in Pittsburgh, where he distanced himself from calls to ban hydraulic fracking and condemned the rioting, looting and arson occurring in some U.S. cities.

The coming focus on Harris presents some challenges for the Trump camp. The president’s team has repeatedly accused Biden of embracing radical social and economic policies to please left-wing revolutionaries ahead of the November election — a line of attack that could complicate efforts to convince voters he and Harris disagree about the direction of their party and the policies their potential administration should enact.

“You can’t spend the summer telling voters they should be afraid of electing Joe Biden because he’s a socialist and then suddenly say, ‘Harris is the actual socialist and she would be in charge if Biden wins,’” said a former Trump campaign official.

A person involved with the Trump campaign maintained that the campaign’s push in the coming weeks to define Harris would not contradict or undo their messaging on Biden. This person said they will focus on specific issues, like abortion and health care, where they believe Harris has staked out untenable positions for the swing voters Biden is targeting. They say Harris cannot afford to revise these positions if she wishes to remain in good standing with the left flank of the Democratic party.

For example, after Biden walked back his support for the Hyde Amendment, a decades-old law prohibiting federal funding for abortion, Harris asked him during a Democratic primary debate last year if he regretted his “decision for years to withhold resources to poor women to have access to reproductive health care, including women who were the victims of rape and incest.”

The California senator has also said she supports the Women’s Health Protection Act, federal legislation that would block states from placing restrictions on abortion services — including gestational limitations that prevent women in some states from terminating their pregnancies in the third trimester. Biden has previously backed efforts to outlaw late-term abortion procedures and his campaign has not said whether he would oppose a Republican-led effort to ban abortion after 20 weeks if elected.

“Late-term abortion is a weak spot for Kamala because there’s no way she is going to turn her back on the liberal women in her base,” said an outside adviser to the Trump campaign. “If she even appeared to embrace Biden’s indecisiveness on these issues, she would piss off Planned Parenthood and NARAL beyond words.”

Harris also clashed with Biden over his opposition to a “Medicare for All” health insurance system during the party’s primary last year. She maintained an option for purchasing Medicare plans from private companies in her own proposal as a 2020 candidate last year, declining to go as far as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose health care reform legislation she previously co-sponsored in the Senate. Biden has promoted an expansion of the Affordable Care Act and once said he would be open to vetoing Medicare for All legislation if the overall cost placed a financial burden on middle-class Americans.

Harris, whose record as California attorney general includes several lawsuits against oil companies over alleged environmental violations, has also carved out a position to the left of Biden on fracking.

“There is no question I am in favor of banning fracking,” she said during a climate change town hall last September, adding that she would use executive authority to immediately ban fracking on public lands while pressuring Congress to expand the ban to private lands.

It’s not unusual to have two candidates with different policy views on the same ticket. When Vice President Mike Pence signed onto the GOP ticket in 2016, he brought with him a lengthy track record of supporting free trade deals, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Trump once likened to “rape.” Pence also called Trump’s proposed Muslim ban, a variation of which he later implemented as president, “offensive and unconstitutional” in a tweet prior to becoming his running mate.

“Paul Ryan’s economic plan was more conservative than [Mitt] Romney’s and George W. Bush supported a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to a man and a woman in 2004, while [Dick] Cheney spoke supportively of gay marriage,” said Joel Goldstein, an expert on vice presidential history.

“Generally, voters focus on the presidential candidates and their positions. As long as the vice presidential candidate is able to conduct themselves in an able and capable way, their own opinions are not likely to be much of an issue,” Goldstein added.

So far, Harris has emerged as an asset since Biden tapped her as his running mate in August. Her presence on the ticket contributed to a major fundraising boost last month as the Biden campaign and Democratic National Committee raised a record-breaking $364.5 million. And her history-making potential as the first Asian American and Black woman on a major party ticket has helped inject enthusiasm into the party’s base, particularly among female and minority voters, according to recent polls.

In a statement, Harris press secretary Sabrina Singh said Biden’s 2020 rival-turned-running mate “will be doing everything possible to elect him this November.”

“As Senator Harris has said from day one, Joe Biden is the leader our country needs to see us through this public health and economic crisis and build a better future for America. She is Vice President Biden’s partner on this ticket,” said Singh.

The Oakland-born senator already got a powerful first wave of the Trump treatment when the president and his allies questioned her eligibility for office the same week she joined the Democratic ticket — a move that drew widespread condemnation even from some in his own party.

“I just heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements and by the way the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very highly qualified, very talented lawyer,” Trump, who was the most prominent figure to promote false “birther” conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama during his first term, said of Harris during a news conference last month.

Though birtherism is unlikely to come up during the Oct. 7 debate between Harris and Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate is expected to dig into the issues on which Harris and Biden harbor some differences.

A person close to Pence said he will continue to push his view that the Democratic ticket “is a trojan horse for a radical leftist agenda” that aligns with Harris’ political views. This person and others said the vice president will attempt to “box in” Harris to where she must choose to disavow Biden’s positions on certain policy issues or water down her own.

The debate will be an important moment for Pence, who is widely viewed as having presidential aspirations of his own and delivered a strong performance in 2016 against then-Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine.

“Generally speaking, your focus is on the presidential candidates and their positions in the vice presidential debates — though the vice presidential candidates become a little more important if you’re worried about succession,” Goldstein said, adding that Trump and Biden are the oldest candidates to compete against each other in a presidential contest.

It will also be the first time Pence faces off against a female competitor, let alone a former prosecutor. The Trump campaign insists Harris’ record as a prosecutor is a liability for her and Biden, noting that she once declined to pursue the death penalty against a gang member who killed an on-duty police officer when she was in the midst of a 2004 bid for the office of San Francisco district attorney.

“There have been some very high-profile instances where she refused to seek the death penalty and she’s largely skated by on them until now,” said a senior Trump campaign official.

But Harris’ prosecutorial background could also give her the upper hand when she takes the stage against Pence next month. The California senator deployed some memorable lines during the Democratic primary debates — including during clashes with Biden — where she often stood in sharp contrast to her opponents. Though Trump’s even-keeled vice president is unlikely to be as brash as his boss on the debate stage, Goldstein said Pence must still walk a fine line as he takes on Biden’s running mate.

“When Biden debated [Sarah] Palin in 2008, he was very careful to treat her respectfully and his success in that debate was just that — that he was respectful to her while he stuck to the substance in attacking [John] McCain,” he recalled.

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Trump exploits Biden’s charter school silence

President Donald Trump is promising to grow charter schools in a second term as he works to win over Black and Hispanic voters, and former Vice President Joe Biden is letting him run with it.

Before an audience of nearly 24 million viewers, Trump said during his Republican National Convention speech that Biden has vowed to “close all charter schools, ripping away the ladder of opportunity for Black and Hispanic children.”

The president's claim is not true, and Trump has not been a reliable charter school ally himself. But Biden isn’t making a big show of countering that accusation or bearhugging the charter community either, after support for the schools took a beating during the Democratic presidential primary. Boxed in by that progressive tide, the former vice president may be creating an opening for Trump to woo parents of color — and on an issue considered part of President Barack Obama’s legacy.

“I could never believe a Donald Trump on the television, trying to exploit the desperation of Black families who need a better option for their kids because the public schools in their neighborhoods are broken,” said Margaret Fortune, co-chair of Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools. “But it also moves me to deep concern that Joe Biden would hand him that narrative, by being silent on the issue.”

Attitudes toward charter schools — which are publicly funded but independently run — divide along party lines. While 54 percent of Republicans support them, only 37 percent of Democrats share that view, according to a poll released in August by Education Next, a policy journal at Harvard. But there is also a racial split among Democrats, with backing from 49 percent of the party’s Black respondents and 47 percent of the party’s Hispanic respondents, compared with 30 percent of white Democrats.

Among the left flank of the Democratic party, charter schools have fallen out of favor even further over the past year, as progressive candidates vying for the presidential nomination battled to win union support. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont pledged to halt federal funds for their expansion.

In May of last year, Biden said during an American Federation of Teachers town hall that “there are some charter schools that work." But he decried “for-profit” charters, which make up a minority of the schools. The former vice president later said, "I am not a charter school fan," during a February campaign event in South Carolina, arguing that they take away "options" and money from traditional public schools.

Now Trump — who in February proposed collapsing a federal program dedicated to charter expansion — is calling for growing the schools, while the message from Biden, who served in a pro-charter school administration, is that he will defund the schools that underperform.

The Trump campaign has seized upon a clip of Biden speaking at an education forum in December. At the time, Biden said he would undo Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ agenda both on charters and regulating sexual misconduct at schools and colleges. “If I’m president, Betsy DeVos’ whole notion, from charter schools to this, are gone,” Biden said at the time.

DeVos told Fox News this week that the former vice president once supported school choice and has since “turned his back on the kids” and “turned his face in favor of the teachers union.”

Fortune, who founded a network of nine charter schools in California, said Biden has been “behaving as if the schools are fine in the neighborhoods where … our people are getting shot and killed by the police.”

“It's not fine. And Barack Obama had the courage to say so and to act on it. And I just want to know, does Joe Biden have that same courage?” said Fortune, a Democrat.

Biden spokesperson Matt Hill said the Democratic presidential nominee’s plan “will not close all charter schools,” as Trump alleged during the GOP convention. But he said the plan is designed to do everything possible to help traditional public schools, “which is what most students attend.”

“As president, Biden will ban for-profit charter schools from receiving federal funds,” Hill said in a statement. “He will also make sure that we stop funding charter schools that don’t provide results. In addition, he will ensure that charter schools are held to the same levels of accountability and transparency as traditional public schools."

Charter schools have received support from presidents from both parties in recent years, including Bill Clinton’s push for the federal law to support startups. Obama is credited with launching the first federal program to replicate and expand high-performing charters. But the schools have always been a flashpoint, especially with powerful teachers unions who cast charters as competition for precious dollars for traditional public schools.

During the 2016-17 school year, 60 percent of students in schools that received funding from the federal Charter Schools Program were low income and 64 percent were Black or Hispanic, according to the Education Department.

Michael Petrilli, who heads the conservative Fordham Institute, said the Trump campaign is “clearly trying to peel away some African American and Latino voters, most likely men, which is where they did better last time to begin with.”

“If they can even get that up just a few percentage points in some of these close states, that of course can make a difference,” said Petrilli, a self-described “never-Trump conservative."

Teachers unions argue that, in addition to siphoning money from traditional public schools, charters are not held to the same accountability standards. But charter schools — which are governed under the terms of a charter with a state, district or other entity — are seen by advocates as an educational lifeline for students in failing traditional schools.

More than 3 million students attend charter schools, about 6 percent of all public school students.

Charles Barone, chief policy officer at the pro-charter group Education Reform Now, said Republicans think “there's a constituency out there — particularly parents of color — who want to have choices for their kids. They see Democrats as not embracing that. So they feel like maybe they can get, particularly, voters of color to cross over.”

Trump cited school choice as a top second-term priority during a recent interview. The president’s signature school choice proposal, which has gone nowhere, would create a $5 billion federal tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations to pay for students to attend private schools or expand their public education options.

During his first three years in office, Trump sought increases in funding for the Charter School Program, designed to fund new schools and replicate high-performing ones. Then, in an about-face, Trump in February proposed rolling the Charter School Program into a single, $19.4 billion block grant, which would force charter advocates to compete for funds with more than two dozen other K-12 education programs. DeVos argued the proposal would “end education earmarks” and allow states to figure out what their students need.

This summer, as part of a veto threat, the administration expressed “disappointment” that the block grant proposal was not included in the House spending bill for the new fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.

While Congress is expected to ditch Trump’s idea when lawmakers move to fund the government this month, the president’s suggestion still stings among charter school advocates.

“If charter schools are not a priority in a state, this particular set-aside is going to be neglected,” said Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “It's not a lot of money, but usually when you block-grant something, you are potentially getting rid of it altogether.”

A White House aide said the administration expects increased investment in charter schools if states are given greater control over more of the money.

On Election Day two years ago, support for “school choice” may have factored into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ victory over Democrat Andrew Gillum.

The dynamics are different in this presidential election. But Andrew J. Rotherham, co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education Partners, said the issue could still matter at the margins.

“If I were Biden, I would be leaving nothing on the table,” he said, adding that education policy is “something of a throwaway issue” for both parties right now.

“There's a circus quality to the whole thing, which is unfortunate,” said Rotherham, who supports Biden. “I think the politics around it are dead serious for a lot of parents who need better schooling options. But in terms of the way it's treated politically, it's just a football.”

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Germany threatens Russia over Navalny case

Sanctions could be imposed on the Russian government if it fails to clarify the circumstances surrounding the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny in the next few days, Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Sunday.

"If there are no contributions ... from the Russian side in the next few days, we will have to discuss an answer with our partners," Maas said in an interview published by Bild am Sonntag. "When we think about sanctions, they should be as targeted as possible.”

German officials already raised the possibility of sanctions against Russia. The government has come under increasing pressure to also reconsider its stance on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which is a critical energy export project for the Russian government. Chancellor Angela Merkel has so far insisted that the multi-billion Russian-German energy project remains a commercial venture and should not be linked to broader political issues.

“I hope that the Russians will not force us to change our position on Nord Stream 2,” said Maas, who is a member of the Social Democrats, Merkel's junior coalition partner.

Nalvany is being treated at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, after falling ill on a flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk. According to the hospital, his condition "continues to improve" but "recovery is likely to be lengthy." The statement added that "it is still too early to gauge the long-term effects which may arise in relation to this severe poisoning."

Last week, Merkel confirmed lab tests had found Navalny was poisoned with the banned chemical nerve agent Novichok, which was also used in the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal in the U.K. in 2018. British authorities say that attack was carried out by Russian security services.

"If the Russian side does not participate in the investigation of the crime against Mr. Navalny, this would be a further indication of the state's involvement in the crime," Maas said.

Russian spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Sunday responded to Maas' comments by accusing German authorities of stalling efforts to probe the case, saying Berlin had failed to respond to a request from Russian prosecutors sent on August 27, the AFP reported.

"So far we are not certain that Germany is not playing a double game," said Zakharova. "Where is the 'urgency' you are insisting upon?"

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Ahmaud Arbery’s mother says 2:23 Foundation using son’s name without consent

Wanda Cooper-Jones publicly criticized people using Arbery’s name for non-profits and trademarks.

Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said she has not endorsed an organization called the 2:23 Foundation. The foundation started an, “I Run With Maud” Labor Day campaign.

Cooper-Jones said she feels disrespected because her late son’s name is being used without her approval.

READ MORE: Supporters organize 2.23-mile run in honor of Ahmaud Arbery

“This foundation did not have my blessings,” Cooper-Jones said, according to Newsweek .

However, the 2:23 Foundation founders told WSB-TV, an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to Atlanta, Georgia, that “[Cooper-Jones] said it was fine.”

In response to the founders, Cooper-Jones publicly criticized people using her son’s name for non-profits and trademarks, saying she felt people were exploiting her situation.

Wanda Cooper-Jones, mother of Ahmaud Arbery, listens as attorneys speak outside the Glynn County Courthouse on July 17, 2020 in Brunswick, Georgia. Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael, and William ‘Roddie’ Bryan appeared before a judge for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

“The ideas for the foundation likely started after national attention began to spread due to our advocacy efforts,” Cooper-Jones wrote, according to Newsweek. “Within seven days of the foundation’s launch, its organizers had already planned a large fundraiser.”

“The I RUN FOR MAUD committee (all five members who I do not know well),” she continued, “have known for months I did not want my child’s death to be exploited or used for monetary gain for anyone. I was disrespected and ignored.”

Newsweek reached out to the foundation’s head of PR and communications. They pointed the publication to a Facebook post made by the foundation.

READ MORE: Court docs say Ahmaud Arbery had previous connection with one of the men who shot him

“We have attempted countless times to reach out to [Cooper-Jones] and counsel to discuss this privately,” the post said.

“Our intention from the beginning was simple: Pursue justice for Ahmaud. Our team has not benefited financially from any of the work we have done to do just that. In fact, we have spent our own money to help pursue justice. And we have gotten the support from Maud’s family in the process.”

#AhmaudArbery’s mother, #WandaCooper, has a message for anyone profiting off of her son’s name.
Ahmaud Arbery’s tragic death made headlines after a video of him getting fatally shot after two white men, a father, and son, chased him down. The men, along … https://t.co/3JvepNNcK0 pic.twitter.com/eWkR43By4o

— theJasmineBRAND (@thejasminebrand) September 5, 2020

As theGrio previously reported, supporters of Ahmaud Arbery, who was ambushed and fatally shot in Georgia by two white men, organized a multi-mile run to raise awareness about his murder and honor him on what would’ve been his 26^th birthday.

Many activists are still promoting the call for justice in Arbery’s case and the cases of the many other unarmed Black men and women have been killed.

Yesterday, tennis star Naomi Osaka wore an Ahmaud Arbery mask. Osaka also wore masks with the names of Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain, CNN reported. 

Have you subscribed to theGrio’s podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!

The post Ahmaud Arbery’s mother says 2:23 Foundation using son’s name without consent appeared first on TheGrio.

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