- President Trump appears in new TV ads funded by taxpayers, prompting bipartisan scrutiny.
- The spot closely mirrors a 2023 campaign ad but now ends with "Paid for by the U.S. Government."
- Experts warn the ads could violate federal bans on propaganda and using taxpayer money for political purposes.
- Public Citizen filed complaints with the Office of Special Counsel and GAO seeking investigations.
- AdImpact estimates spending exceeds $1 million, while the White House refuses to disclose the paying agency or public purpose.
President Trump is no stranger to the small screen. Before he was a politician, he had his own reality competition show (The Apprentice), and throughout his political career, he's run his fair share of campaign ads. Now, he's back on TV with a fresh batch of commercials, but this time taxpayers are footing the bill.
A series of government-funded spots featuring the president is drawing scrutiny from ethics experts and lawmakers in both parties — and one in particular is getting attention because it looks awfully familiar.
What exactly is in Trump's controversial new ad?
The latest spot, which began airing over the weekend, is 30 seconds of black-and-white footage showing Trump walking down a hallway, with his voiceover warning of a “final battle” against a long list of political targets.
“With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists,” Trump says. He goes on to pledge to “throw off the sick political class that hates our country,” “rout the fake news media” and “liberate America from these villains, once and for all.”
Sound familiar? The spot is nearly identical to one Trump posted on his platform Truth Social in 2023 while campaigning to return to the White House. The earlier version featured Trump campaign branding and urged viewers to “Join President Trump’s Fight for America.” The new version, however, ends with Trump staring directly into the camera as “Paid for by the U.S. Government” appears on screen.
And this isn't the only Trump-focused ad the government has been paying to air. It's the third such spot to run in recent days, according to the ad-analytics firm AdImpact. The first, which debuted last week, features Trump pledging to defeat “socialism and communism and Marxism” over a montage set to the song “Love Me,” while a second uses clips from his July 4 speech at Mount Rushmore.
It's unclear exactly how much the government has spent airing the three ads, but according to The New York Times, AdImpact estimates the total exceeds $1 million based on the media markets where the spots have aired.
Why are the ads raising concerns?
The issue largely comes down to whether taxpayer money is being used to boost Trump politically. And the timing is noteworthy: The ads are airing just weeks before the November midterms, as Republicans fight to hold onto their majorities in Congress.
But here's the thing: Federal law bars agencies from spending taxpayer money on unauthorized “publicity or propaganda,” and some ethics experts say Trump’s recent ads may cross that line, especially now that the government is airing material his campaign previously used.
“The president and his administration have gone from breaking the law to trampling it,” Norm Eisen, a former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform under Barack Obama, told The New York Times. “The prior ad was bad enough, but this one openly repurposes prior political conduct.”
The White House has defended the spots as “public service announcements” with no “call to action,” while also noting that Trump himself isn't on the ballot in November. But it still hasn't said which government agency is behind the ads or paying to air them.
Critics question what public purpose the ads serve. Margaret Dylus-Yukins, senior legal counsel for ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, says in a statement to KCM that neither the latest spot nor an earlier government-funded ad has “any apparent connection to any federal program or service.”
“We don't know which agency paid to produce and place these ads,” Dylus-Yukins says. “But it's difficult to see what legitimate government purpose is served by spending taxpayer dollars on ads whose only apparent purpose is to promote the president and reinforce his political message weeks before an election.”
“At a minimum, this is an appalling abuse of taxpayer dollars,” she adds.
Other experts have gone even further. Former White House ethics attorney Richard Painter raised the possibility of impeachment over the spending.
What happens now?
The ads are already facing calls for federal scrutiny. Watchdog group Public Citizen has filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and Government Accountability Office, alleging that White House employees involved in producing and distributing the ads violated the Hatch Act and federal restrictions on government-funded propaganda. The group is asking both agencies to investigate.
Lawmakers, including some of his fellow Republicans, are also pushing back. When asked about the ads by CBS News on Sunday, GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said he believes the same standard should apply to any public official — himself included.
“I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” he said. (Former Homeland Security Secretary Noem came under fire over a $220 million taxpayer-funded border security ad campaign that prominently featured her.)
And Kennedy isn't the only Republican to object. After Trump's “Love Me” ad began airing, GOP Sen. Thom Tillis called the use of taxpayer money “inappropriate” and compared it to tactics used by former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. “It’s inappropriate," he told reporters. "It’s not like they need a GoFundMe page to have the dollars to do that sort of ad and they could do it."
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican and frequent Trump critic, was even more pointed in response to the “Final Battle” ad, writing on social media that using taxpayer dollars to run campaign-style ads featuring the president is something done “in banana republics.”
Democrats have pushed back, too. Four top Democratic appropriators sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles calling for the ads to be pulled and demanding information about how much taxpayer money has been spent on them and which federal agencies are footing the bill. The lawmakers argued that the ads violate federal restrictions on using public money for “publicity or propaganda.”
It remains to be seen whether any of that pressure will lead to action.
