Pro-Trump group launches $2.5M attack ad blitz against Rep. Max Rose, vulnerable Democrats

A pro-Trump group with ties to House GOP leadership launched a $2.5 million TV and digital ad blitz slamming nine vulnerable Democrats who voted for impeachment — including Staten Island Rep. Max Rose and upstate Rep. Anthony Brindisi.

“Each and every one of these Members will have to explain their vote to impeach President Trump,” said American Action Network president Dan Conston.

“Folks at home expect their member of Congress to deliver on real issues, instead they’ve spent every waking moment trying to remove Trump from office for their own partisan political ends. They chose to put the far left’s crusade to impeach this President ahead of what’s best for their constituents, and now there’s going to be a reckoning for it back home.”

The nine Dem congressmen represent districts that Trump carried over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Rose shot back the American Action Network is a tainted group whose chairman, former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, is a registered lobbyist for Saudi Arabia.

“To think a corrupt super PAC run by Saudi Arabia’s top lobbyist will stop me from taking on the swamp and getting results for my constituents is idiotic. Bring it on!” Rose said.

In the 30-second Rose spot, the narrator says, “Enough. Max Rose ignored us and voted to impeach the president, a politically motivated charade that let the Washington elites decide the election, not us.”

It says Rose instead should focus on fighting the opioid crisis, securing the border and helping veterans. His likely GOP opponent, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, is also making hay of Rose’s vote for impeachment.

Rose, an Army veteran, in 2018 upset GOP Rep. Dan Donovan, who was strongly backed by the president. Rose also is being targeted by Team Trump.

The White House press office on Wednesday issued a statement rapping Rose for backing impeachment hours before the vote was taken.

Trump carried the 11th Congressional District — which takes in southern Brooklyn as well as Staten Island — by 8 points over Clinton in 2016.

It was only last week that Rose, who is Jewish, attended a White House ceremony applauding Trump’s signing of an executive order to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses. Rose stood directly behind Trump when the president signed the order.

But that was then.

“Rep. Max Rose said he wouldn’t go to Washington with a ‘partisan pitchfork’ in his hand, yet he joins Nancy Pelosi and the progressive Democrats in their hyper-partisan, baseless impeachment sham,” White House deputy press secretary Steven Groves said in a statement.

“While Rose is clearly beholden to Pelosi and the DC swamp, President Trump has not stopped fighting for Staten Island and South Brooklyn to address the opioid crisis, improve our infrastructure, and lower prescription drug prices,” added Groves.

Rose downplayed the White House salvo.

“The President seems to have forgotten that we were working together at the White House last week to combat anti-Semitism — just as we worked together to fully fund the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund,” Rose said in a statement.

“I’m proud that the President is about to sign my legislation to sanction Chinese pharmaceutical companies for pumping fentanyl onto our streets and split-tolling which will get Jersey trucks off our streets,” he said, referring to scrapping the one-way toll at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and instituting two-way traffic to curb congestion.

Rose initially opposed impeachment as counterproductive. But he changed his mind after seeing revelations about Trump’s handling of funding for Ukraine.

Democrats contend that Trump abused his power by asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch probes of former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential White House rival, and his troubled son Hunter, while withholding military aid. Trump said he did nothing wrong and accused Democrats of abusing their power.