‘Unimaginable is difficult to imagine’: New dystopian ad sparks debate on CNN
A CNN panel discussion turned into a debate over the realities of abortion in GOP-led red states now and across the country if Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wins the November election and if he implements Project 2025 policies. Lincoln Project strategist Stuart Stevens smacked down CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings who attempted to mock the ad and its producers.
The Lincoln Project’s new ad, “State Line,” depicts a father in a dystopian America in the not-too-distant future under a Project 2025 abortion ban driving his daughter out of a red state to obtain medical services. A police officer pulls them over and starts to interrogate the daughter, having very personal and specific information about her pregnancy, her sister’s whereabouts, and the GPS coordinates of their destination “in one of those abortion states.”
“What are you, about eight weeks pregnant?” the officer says. “I see you’ve been spotting recently. You had any cramps, or nausea?”
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As the interrogation heats up, the teenager says, “We have the right to travel.”
The police officer shakes his head and says, “Not anymore.”
The ad concedes with text that reads: “With Project 2025, a nationwide ban on abortion with out exception is enforced by anyone with a badge.”
CNN host Abby Phillips opened the discussion as two of the panelists were suppressing their laughter.
CNN’s Scott Jennings, a Karl Rove protege who has worked for President George W. Bush’s campaigns and in the Bush White House, began the commentary by mocking the ad and its producers.
“Well, I’m glad to see we have very serious people putting out very serious advertising,” snarked Jennings, who has also worked for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
He then turned his attention to The Lincoln Project’s Stuart Stevens, asking: “You make this?”
“I didn’t make it but I’m with The Lincoln Project and I think it’s going to be a very effective ad,” Stevens replied.
As Jennings began to respond, Stevens calmly continued talking, saying: “You know, the problem with the unimaginable is, it’s difficult to imagine.”
“And what you have here are these laws that are being passed – this actually has happened,” Stevens told Jennings, who appeared to be bobbing up and down. “I mean, they did criminalize someone going out of state in Ohio.”
“When you get these states that ban abortion, you know, they are going to track all of this,” Stevens added, apparently referencing the police officer’s comments to the teenager in the ad. “When you make something criminal – you’re a woman, and you’re using an app to track periods that could become evidence against you in a trial. That is the world here. And one thing about it is we only banned abortions in states like Mississippi for poor people, because everybody I grew up with in Mississippi who had money and something, went to get an abortion, they would get an abortion. And that is still going to happen, and it is absolutely more impactful on those [in a] lower economic status.”
“And this is what has happened. And the idea that you just sort of say, ‘well, you know, it’s just policy,’ something that people thought was a constitutional right for almost two generations has been taken away. And I think it is about liberty, and it is about the heavy hand of government.”
Panelist Katie Frost, a former communications director for Alabama’s Roy Moore’s failed Senate bid, said the ad to her felt like “fan fiction.”
She also claimed that abortion is “the only issue that [Vice President Kamala] Harris and the Democrats think they can run on. Every single other issue, they’re absolutely going to get destroyed on.”
Harris is currently beating Trump by 3.5 percentage points according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average.
“This is excellent,” observed award-winning producer, author, and filmmaker Melissa Jo Peltier, commenting on the Lincoln Project ad. “The idea that women would not be able to travel freely throughout the country…that their personal health would be monitored…it’s beyond creepy. It’s barbaric. What comes next? Menstrual huts?”
Watch the Lincoln Project’s new ad above, the entire CNN panel discussion below.