New digital ad casts Donald Trump as racist

In an effort to fire up a key Democratic constituency, a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton on Friday launched a new advertising campaign that casts Republican Donald Trump as a racist who is too divisive to lead the country.

Priorities USA Action is spending $400,000 to reach black voters in Florida, Ohio and North Carolina with two digital ads.

One, called “Most Racist Person,” uses clips of Trump – from him singling out “my African American” at a rally to advancing a false claim during a television interview that President Obama may have been born in Kenya. It ends with Trump saying, “I have not got a racist bone in my body… Believe me. Believe me.”

A final message then flashes on the screen: “Don’t believe him. Vote Hillary.”

A second ad features African-American celebrities, such as D. L. Hughley, urging black voters to “take power, take control” by turning out on Election Day.

The ads will appear on Facebook, Instagram and Pandora.

“Donald Trump is too divisive and dangerous to lead this country, and African-American voters have the power to control this race by exercising their right to vote,” Priorities spokesman Justin Barasky said in a statement.

As polls show a tightening presidential race, one of Clinton’s challenges in the final stretch of the campaign is ensuring that the Democratic base turns out to vote.

The new digital ads come as Trump seeks to distance himself from his longstanding effort to fuel doubts about the birthplace of the nation’s first African-American president.

On Friday, Trump acknowledged for the first time that Obama was born in the United States. He then sought to blame Clinton for starting the birther rumors in the first place. There is no factual basis for that claim, which has earned Four Pinocchios from Washington Post fact-checkers.