Mad Dog PAC, the organization behind the billboard comparing Donald Trump to Fidel Castro that has some South Florida residents in a tizzy, says this is "one of many meant to expose the truth about the former president."
“Our mission is to beat Donald Trump by exposing the truth about him,” PAC Founder Claude Taylor told NBC6. “We put up hard-hitting billboards in a number of battleground states.”
The billboard was getting everything from laughs to heated responses from neighbors near Northwest 67th Avenue and the Palmetto Expressway. One woman told Telemundo 51 in Spanish that it was disrespectful to Cuba, Cubans, Trump and the U.S.
But the sign by the Palmetto is not the only controversial one. Taylor says the PAC has billboards going up every day in Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and those he calls "the big three:" Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
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So who runs this Political Action Committee (PAC), and is its goal to get laughs or prompt serious deliberation?
Perhaps both, says Taylor, who became something of a social media celebrity during Trump's first campaign for the presidency.
The billboards that get people talking
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People from all over leave emails and messages on the PAC’s answering machine about the signs, Taylor says.
“I mean, some of our billboards are just really intended to be funny,” Taylor insisted. “We put up a billboard on I-95 at Mar-a-Lago… that simply said ‘cheats at golf.’ That one probably got as big a reaction as any.”
Still, others go for the jugular.
“We've got the one over on I-75 that says ‘convicted felon,’ which is really all anyone needs to know right now about Donald Trump,” Taylor said.
The PAC's website features one that says "Roe roe roe your vote," referencing the overturned Supreme Court case that granted federal abortion protections, but it's unclear where that one is located.
“We just put up a really nice one on I-75 between Tampa and Sarasota… [and] we've got a nice one on Orlando's I-4 with Mark Hamill, who gave us permission to use his image," Taylor said.
Hamill starred as the legendary Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise. The sign he features in reads, “The force is strong with Biden.”
Humor aside, Mad Dog PAC stands behind the comparison made on the local billboard.
"As someone who has spent time in Cuba, and in Florida, and even in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Fidel Castro was a horrible dictator. And in the view of my organization, Donald Trump would be just as horrible of a dictator," Taylor said.
"I think it's very fair to compare Donald Trump, who, in his wildest dreams, he aspires to be a Fidel Castro. He wants to be another dictator and just as evil as Fidel Castro was."
Trump's Hispanic Communications Director, Jaime Florez, said their camp is not surprised by the sign.
"It's another sign of the desperation of President Biden's campaign, and of the Democratic Party, that are realizing that they've flat-out failed with Hispanics," Florez said.
"If there's someone that's showed us that he doesn't have any interest in being a dictator, it's President Trump, who already was president of the United States," the statement added.
How many are there?
Around 15 or 20 new billboards have gone up in Florida since January, but this sign is the first in Spanish and the first in South Florida. It won’t be the last, Taylor says.
“We include Florida because it has special importance because it's so much associated with Donald Trump,” he said.
And who pays for the signs, you might ask? MAD Dog PAC claims on its website it's funded by everyday people, not "wealthy individuals and special interest groups."
