NEY YORK, Nov 06 (Reuters): NBC, Fox News and Facebook pulled an ad by President Donald Trump's campaign that critics had labeled racist as a bitter election fight for control of the US Congress headed on Monday for an unpredictable finish.
The 30-second ad, which was sponsored by Trump's 2020 re-election campaign and which debuted online last week, featured courtroom video of an illegal immigrant from Mexico convicted in the 2014 killings of two police officers, juxtaposed with scenes of migrants headed through Mexico.
Critics, including members of Trump's own party, had condemned the spot as racially divisive.
CNN had refused to run the ad, saying it was "racist." NBC, owned by Comcast Corp, said on Monday it was no longer running the ad, which it called "insensitive."
Fox News Channel, which Trump has repeatedly named his favorite broadcaster, also said it would no longer run the spot. Fox News, a unit of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc, said it had made the decision after a review but did not elaborate.
Facebook Inc said it would no longer allow paid promotions of the ad, although it would allow users to share the ad on their own pages.
Trump batted away reporters' questions about the networks' decision to drop the ad.
"You're telling me something I don't know about. We have a lot of ads, and they certainly are effective based on the numbers we're seeing," Trump said as he departed Joint Base Andrews in Maryland for a rally in Cleveland.
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