NBC on Sunday aired a controversial political ad paid for by President Donald Trump’s campaign during the prime-time commercial breaks for Sunday Night Football.
The anti-immigration ad, which the president first shared last Wednesday, aired about two hours into the broadcast of Sunday’s game between the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers.
The company was widely lambasted for airing it. On Monday morning, an NBC Universal spokesperson said the company recognizes “the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible,” according to a tweet from NBC News media reporter Dylan Byers.
The clip has sought to whip up voters’ fears of the Central American migrant caravan ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections. The 30-second spot includes footage of Luis Bracamontes, a Mexican citizen who killed two police officers in 2014, and likens his behavior to members of the caravan. The video then urges viewers to “vote Republican” before a voiceover from the president says he approves the message.
The spot has been roundly criticized and CNN made headlines after the network refused to air it, saying it was blatantly “racist.” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, had criticized the network earlier for turning the ad down, saying CNN would “only run fake news and won’t talk about real threats.”
“When presented with an opportunity to be paid to take a version of this ad, we declined,” CNN PR tweeted back at Trump Jr. “Those are the facts.”
NBC didn’t appear to have the same hesitations, and people around the country took to social media to voice their frustrations that the network would accept money to air the advertisement despite its message.
The network did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Some have pointed to an NBC statement from 2015 in which the network cut ties with Trump over his controversial remarks on immigration. The company said at the time that it would no longer broadcast the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants, saying “respect and dignity for all people are cornerstone of our values.”
Trump has continued to target media outlets at recent campaign rallies and moved to politicize those in the migrant caravan. The group, many fleeing violence in Honduras, has been traveling on foot and are still several weeks away from America’s southern border.
Still, the president has defaulted toward fear-mongering ahead of the midterms and last week sent more than 5,200 troops to the region.
This story has been updated with NBC’s statement.