--- title: Obama Sends Cease-and-Desist Over S.C. Ad Attacking Biden description: President Barack Obama called on South Carolina TV stations to stop airing an ad that uses his voice out of context to attack Joe Biden canonical: https://time.com/5791527/obama-biden-south-carolina-attack-ad/ author: Billy Perrigo article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-02-27T13:43:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T08:19:17.364Z article:section: Politics og:title: Barack Obama Sends Cease-and-Desist Over South Carolina Republican Ad Attacking Joe Biden og:description: Obama accused Republicans of trying to suppress black voter turnout ahead of the state's Democratic primary og:url: https://time.com/5791527/obama-biden-south-carolina-attack-ad/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49d07c93427bcb4a/698a0abd096a942f9d6a7c7d/obama-biden-attack-ad-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5124 og:image:height: 2882 og:image:alt: Former US President Barack Obama in Berlin og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Barack Obama Sends Cease-and-Desist Over South Carolina Republican Ad Attacking Joe Biden twitter:description: Obama accused Republicans of trying to suppress black voter turnout ahead of the state's Democratic primary twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49d07c93427bcb4a/698a0abd096a942f9d6a7c7d/obama-biden-attack-ad-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Barack Obama Sends Cease-and-Desist Over South Carolina Ad Attacking Joe Biden > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Billy Perrigo](https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/)  ## Billy Perrigo Correspondent Feb 27, 2020 1:43 PM UTC  Former U.S. President Barack Obama addresses questions from young people at a town hall event on April 6, 2019 in Berlin. Former U.S. President Barack Obama addresses questions from young people at a town hall event on April 6, 2019 in Berlin. Jörg Carstensen—DPA/Getty Images  by [Billy Perrigo](https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/)  ## Billy Perrigo Correspondent Feb 27, 2020 1:43 PM UTC Former President Barack Obama called on [South Carolina](https://time.com/5790845/democratic-debate-analysis-south-carolina/) TV stations to stop airing an attack ad that uses his voice to criticize his former Vice President [Joe Biden](https://time.com/longform/joe-biden-2020/) on Wednesday, accusing Republicans of trying to suppress black voter turnout ahead of the state’s Democratic primary on Saturday. The ad, paid for by pro-Trump PAC the Committee to Defend the President, uses a clip from the audiobook of Obama’s 1995 memoir _Dreams From My Father_ to falsely suggest Obama is criticizing Biden. According to [Poynter’s Politifact](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/nov/12/committee-defend-president/pro-trump-facebook-ad-distorts-obamas-words-about-/), a fact-checking website, the ad takes Obama’s words “wildly” out of context. The section of the memoir, it says, is written from the perspective of somebody else: a black barber in Chicago, speaking about the politics of the city. Later on in the passage, Obama goes on to talk about the power of African Americans to vote for candidates who represent the issues they care about. “The pro-Trump ad uses the passage to create the impression that Obama believed that black voters… sold their soul to the Democrats at election time,” Politifact says. “But the actual book passage is about the good things that come from voting.” South Carolina is the first state with a large African American population to vote in the Democratic primaries. For Biden, who has historically received support from the black community, it presents [perhaps a final chance](https://time.com/5790074/joe-biden-south-carolina-primary/) to revive a flagging performance in the early stages of the race. In the ad, a narrator’s voiceover begins: “Joe Biden promised to help our community. It was a lie. Here’s President Obama.” The misleading segment from _Dreams From My Father_ then plays before the narrator concludes, saying: “Enough. Joe Biden won’t represent us, defend us, or help us. Don’t believe Biden’s empty promises.” > [](https://twitter.com/Defend%5FTrump/status/1232488570385862658) “This despicable ad is straight out of the Republican disinformation playbook, and it’s clearly designed to suppress turnout among minority voters in South Carolina by taking President Obama’s voice out of context and twisting his words to mislead viewers,” Obama’s communications director Katie Hill said in a statement. “In the interest of truth in advertising, we are calling on TV stations to take this ad down and stop playing into the hands of bad actors who seek to sow division and confusion among the electorate.” Obama sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Committee to Defend the President on Wednesday, through an attorney. “This unauthorized use of President Obama’s name, image, likeness, voice and book passage is clearly intended to mislead the target audience of the ad into believing that the passage from the audiobook is a statement that was made by President Barack Obama during his presidency, when it was in fact made by a barber in a completely different context more than 20 years ago,” the letter said. “To this end, the Committee to Defend the President must immediately remove this ad … further the Committee to Defend the President must agree on behalf of itself and all affiliated entities to refrain from future misuse of President Obama’s intellectual property or right of publicity.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5791527/obama-biden-south-carolina-attack-ad/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5791527/obama-biden-south-carolina-attack-ad/"},"headline":"Barack Obama Sends Cease-and-Desist Over South Carolina Ad Attacking Joe Biden","datePublished":"2020-02-27T13:43:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T08:19:17.364Z","description":"Obama accused Republicans of trying to suppress black voter turnout ahead of the state's Democratic primary","url":"https://time.com/5791527/obama-biden-south-carolina-attack-ad/","keywords":["2020 Presidential Election","politics","South Carolina","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49d07c93427bcb4a/698a0abd096a942f9d6a7c7d/obama-biden-attack-ad-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Billy Perrigo","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/billy-perrigo/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49d07c93427bcb4a/698a0abd096a942f9d6a7c7d/obama-biden-attack-ad-south-carolina.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Former US President Barack Obama in Berlin","caption":"Former US President Barack Obama in Berlin","creditText":"Jörg Carstensen—DPA/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2020-presidential-election/","name":"2020 Presidential Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5791527/obama-biden-south-carolina-attack-ad/","name":"Barack Obama Sends Cease-and-Desist Over South Carolina Ad Attacking Joe Biden"}}]}] ```