After Bollywood Event, Trump Tries To Speak Hindi In A New Ad

“Ab ki baar Trump sarkar,” he says in the ad. (It means “This time a Trump government.”)

Donald Trump is taking his recent proclamation that “we love the Hindus” to the airwaves, as he continues to court Indian-American voters with a new ad..

Trump, who recently attended an event with Bollywood stars organized by the Republican Hindu Coalition, is airing a new ad on Indian-American TV channels that splices together footage of his speech from the event with pictures of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and of the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai.

“The Indian and Hindu community will have a true friend in the White House,” he says in the ad. “We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism.”

Trump also borrows a variation of a slogan Modi used during his campaign in India. “Ab ki baar Trump sarkar,” he says in the ad. It means “This time a Trump government.”

The ad opens by wishing viewers a Happy Diwali, the biggest festival of the year for Hindus which is this weekend. It closes with Trump saying, “We love the Hindus. We love India,” before the disclaimer saying it’s paid for by the Trump campaign.

Shalli Kumar, an Indian-American donor to Trump and chairman of his Indian-American Advisory Council, told on Wednesday evening that the ad was running on all Indian-American channels 20 times a day. He declined to disclose how much the campaign is spending on the spot.

Kumar and his wife have given nearly $900,000 to a joint fundraising committee benefiting Trump and the Republican National Committee.

Donald Trump attends the Republican Hindu Coalition’s Humanity United Against Terror Charity event.Kena Betancur / Getty Images

“We wanted to reach out to Hindu-Americans to let everybody know that he loves Hindus, he loves India and he is looking forward to getting that message out that he identifies with Hindus,” Kumar said.

It opens with the Diwali message because “if he’s doing an ad at this time, it would be impolite not to wish Happy Diwali,” Kumar said.

Asked which vendor had produced the ad, Kumar responded that the Indian-American Advisory Committee put the ad together. “We had most of the footage because it was take from the event itself. We just took footage from there.”

Kumar said he helped Trump practice the Hindi slogan for the ad. “He said this sentence about 15 times. He spoke better than David Cameron did when he did the same thing in 2015.”

Trump’s campaign, which has not publicly announced the ad, did not immediately respond for comment.