GOP’s ‘Commitment to America’ Video Is Ripe With Stock Footage of Russia

thewrap.com:

“The Preamble to the Commitment to America,” which lays out their “Commitment to America” agenda for 2023, focusing on what they believe it truly means to be American.

The thing is, some of the beautiful archival footage used in their video meant to highlight America, isn’t of America at all, but rather Russia and Ukraine.“America is exceptional,” the video posted on YouTube by Kevin McCarthy begins. “As Americans, we cherish out rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We salute those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our freedom.”A clip of a cheerful little boy running in an open field and playing with his toy airplane plays, which turns to archival footage of Allied forces storming Omaha Beach in Normandy during World War II followed by the raising of the American flag in Iwo Jima.

Two unquestionably proud moments in American history. But that little boy with the toy plane had nothing to do with America and, was in fact, filmed in Russia and shot by Russian filmmaker Serg Grbanoff, Grbanoff in the country’s Volgograd region, he told Huffington Post.And that wasn’t the only place the GOP used video shot in Russia and mascaraed it as the U.S. “We celebrate the rich heritage of the American story and the vibrancy of the American Dream,” a voice says over footage of a drilling rig silhouette in a setting sun.