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Donald Trump's New Hindi Ad Looks Like 'Some Spoof Video'

Donald Trump's New Hindi Ad Looks Like 'Some Spoof Video'
Donald Trump
Donald J Trump For President
Donald Trump

Donald Trump has released an ad aimed at winning over Indian-American voters, and it’s... well... just watch above.

The ad opened with a greeting for Diwali ― the Hindu festival of lights, which starts this weekend ― yet also included an image of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. Trump then vowed to defeat “radical Islamic terrorism” and even attempted a few words in Hindi.

“Ab ki baar Trump sarkaar,” he said in the clip, which appeared to have a jump cut toward the end of the phrase. The Washington Post noted that the phrase was similar to the one used by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his campaign: “ab ki baar Modi sarkaar,” which means “this time, a Modi government.”

Shalli Kumar, chairman of Trump’s Indian-American Advisory Council, told BuzzFeed News that the ad was airing on Indian-American channels 20 times a day.

We wanted to reach out to Hindu-Americans to let everybody know that he loves Hindus,” Kumar said. “He loves India and he is looking forward to getting that message out that he identifies with Hindus.”

The ad ended with Trump saying, “We love the Hindus! We love India!” However, the GOP presidential candidate has his work cut out for him. A survey released earlier this month found just 7 percent of Indian-Americans planned to vote for him. According to the Washington Post, that’s less than half the support given to Mitt Romney in 2012, who won 16 percent of the Indian-American vote.

The BBC spoke to several people on the streets of Delhi to see what they thought about the ad, and most weren’t impressed.

“I thought the U.S. was a developed country, but after seeing this man come this far, I am having serious doubts,” Kriti Kakkar was quoted as saying.

“Are you sure this is not some spoof video?” asked Raymon Singh. “If this is a real video, then it just proves that he is a man of contradictions. He first berates immigrants and then tries to woo Indian-Americans.”

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.