On the eve of President Joe Biden’s campaign visit to California and Washington this week, his reelection campaign launched an attack ad on former President Donald Trump highlighting health care access. 

What You Need To Know

  • President Biden will campaign in California and Washington this week

  • He will visit San Francisco on Wednesday and Seattle on Thursday to attend campaign receptions

  • On Tuesday, Biden-Harris 2024 launched an attack ad on former President Donald Trump highlighting healthcare access

  • The TV ad says Trump is "openly running on a platform of terminating the Affordable Care Act" and highlights his efforts to repeal the landmark legislation

In a new television ad, the campaign accuses Trump of “openly running on a platform of terminating the Affordable Care Act” and highlights Trump’s efforts to repeal the landmark legislation that is currently providing health insurance to 21.3 million Americans.

The spot, entitled "Terminate," will run on TV and digital in battleground states as part of a $14 million May ad buy. It features Trump calling the Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as "Obamacare," a "disaster" and pledging to "terminate it," juxtaposed with Biden's comments at a rally in Scranton, Pa., last month vowing to protect the law.

"That would mean over 100 million Americans will lose protections for preexisting conditions," the president says in the ad, later adding: "Health care should be a basic right ... folks, he's coming for your health care and we're not going to let that happen."

"Every time Donald Trump promises to gut the Affordable Care Act, rip away health care and protections for preexisting conditions, and jack up costs, he reminds the American people that health care is on the ballot this November for tens of millions of Americans," Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. "It’s a threat that we have to take seriously because every time he’s had the chance, Trump has gone after Americans’ hard-earned health care."

"Voters want a leader who will protect and strengthen their health care, not try and take it away," she added.

As president, Trump sought to invalidate the Obama-era health care law numerous times. His administration backed a challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court, which the high court rejected in 2021, and in 2017, three Republican senators broke with their party -- Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and John McCain, R-Ariz. -- to kill a House-passed bill that would have partially repealed the law. Trump said last year that if reelected, he is "seriously looking at alternatives" to the ACA, calling the failed efforts to repeal the law "a low point for the Republican Party."

"I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to REPLACE IT with MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late last year. "Obamacare Sucks!!!"

Despite his promises to replace the ACA, he has not unveiled a proposal to do so, and Republicans in Congress have largely cooled on the issue of repealing the law.

The Democratic president has sought to highlight efforts he undertook in his first term to protect and expand the ACA, touting record enrollment, enlisting Democratic heavy hitters Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama to hammer home the point as he seeks a reelection.