“Well, I frankly think it is overblown and incredibly manufactured,” Sanders said defending her ad on Fox News Thursday.
“We know that there are a variety of different people who, instead of working, are choosing not to and getting government benefits,” she added.
Controversial commentators fumed online over seeing “Brad,” a white man playing a video game and scarfing down potato chips, as the person representing welfare fraud in the ad.
Sanders told viewers in the ad that Brad had “turned relaxing into a full-time profession” and that “you pay taxes to cover welfare for guys like Brad who just choose not to work.”
Among those who took full offense to seeing a white man depict welfare fraud was right-wing pastor Joel Webbon, who told Sanders on X, “You should make your message more believable by picking someone Black.”
The Arkansas governor initially responded to the criticism, quipping that, “Next thing you know they’ll say I should have used cookies instead of cheese balls.”
“We’re getting the job done, and I think that instead of conservatives attacking other conservatives, they should be supporting that policy,” she said on Fox News, defending herself once again.