The federal government has spent at least $1.7 million to air three different TV ads featuring President Donald Trump in recent days, according to an estimate from AdImpact, which tracks and analyzes political ad spending across television, digital and connected TV channels.<\/p>\n
Critics say the ads could violate federal propaganda law. The White House has defended them as \u201cpublic service announcements\u201d and drawn comparisons to past examples of\u00a0administrations that created PSA’s to highlight new drug coverage under Medicare and signups for the Affordable Care Act exchanges.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The latest ad features Trump in monochrome, slowly walking down a hallway, describing \u201cthe final battle\u201d against “the deep state,\u201d \u201cthe globalists,\u201d and \u201cthe sick political class that hates our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"America\"](\"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/06eb0c8f-8922-4e90-a229-4cbfdcf18b96\/trump-1-ht-er-260928_1790634202505_hpMain_16x9.jpg?w=375 "\\"America\\"")
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>An ad that aired on Fox during college football on Saturday and on \u201cFox News Sunday\u201d was used in a 2023 Trump campaign ad.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n U.S. Government<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The president is seen glaring directly at the camera as his voiceover vows to \u201crout the fake news media\u201d and \u201cliberate America from these villains once and for all.”<\/p>\n The same video was shared by Trump three years ago\u00a0when he was out of office and a declared candidate for president. The audio is taken from a\u00a0Trump campaign stop in Michigan in June 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n A search of the monitoring service TVEyes indicates the ad ran at least twice over the weekend on the Fox Broadcasting Network — once during college football on Saturday and again\u00a0Sunday <\/u>on “Fox News Sunday<\/u><\/a>.”<\/p>\n Another ad that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” shows images of Trump at an event at Mt. Rushmore celebrating the country’s 250th birthday in which he celebrates “only the beginning of the golden age of America.”<\/p>\n An ad aired last week showed Trump boasting about his record and vowing the United States “will never be a communist country.” That ad ran repeatedly during the week on conservative cable news channels Fox News and Newsmax across several media markets, according to AdImpact, a media buying and tracking firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who would help lead\u00a0congressional oversight efforts if his party retakes the House this fall, condemned the\u00a0first ad after it aired last week.<\/p>\n “This may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes,” Raskin\u00a0wrote<\/u><\/a>. “It is a Hatch Act violation for any government employees who worked on it or\u00a0used government resources to make it. It is blatantly unethical under numerous\u00a0federal ethics provisions proscribing the\u00a0use of government resources for political campaigns.”<\/p>\n The Hatch Act restricts certain political activities by federal employees and by some state, Washington, D.C., and local government workers who are involved or work in federally funded programs.<\/p>\n Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan requested information on the first ad from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, asking for details about how the ad was produced and the source of the federal funds\u00a0used to air it.<\/p>\n Some Republicans have criticized the ads as well.<\/p>\n Brinker Harding, the Republican candidate in Nebraska’s 2nd District, represented by retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon, and won by Kamala Harris by five points in 2024, issued a statement condemning the taxpayer-funded\u00a0ads.<\/p>\n “America is $40 trillion dollars in debt, and Nebraskans are struggling to make ends meet.\u00a0We should be laser focused on spending the taxpayers\u2019 hard earned dollars wisely, not funding political TV\u00a0advertisements with their money,” Harding posted on X.<\/p>\n Republican Sen. John Kennedy criticized the first\u00a0ad\u00a0after it aired, saying that public funds shouldn\u2019t be used for such a cause.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private\u00a0ads for themselves,” he said. “Now, the White House sees it differently, but I think there ought to be a rule that you can’t — well, there probably is a rule — you can’t spend public money to promote yourself.”<\/p>\n An ad that ran Sunday on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d shows President Donald Trump at a speech at Mt. Rushmore on America\u2019s 250th anniversary.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n U.S. Government<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n White House Communications Director Steven Cheung defended the\u00a0administration\u2019s ads on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t let the Fake News get away with their lies about our epic Public Service Announcements that have been running on tv,\u201d Cheung wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Asked on Sunday about the\u00a0ad\u00a0that appears to be a copy of the 2024 campaign ad, the White House said in a statement that the \u201cpublic service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u00a0added, \u201cThe\u00a0ad\u00a0is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n A White House official also defended the\u00a0ads as \u201cclearly not political\u201d and asserted that Trump \u201cis not on the ballot and the\u00a0ads don\u2019t have a call to action,\u201d though Trump has repeatedly encouraged voters to \u201cpretend\u201d that he is on the ballot.<\/p>\n Cheung supplied a White House fact sheet on the ads highlighting President Woodrow Wilson\u2019s efforts to bolster support for World War I in a campaign that\u00a0used taxpayer funds to manipulate public opinion and shape news coverage.<\/p>\n While it birthed the classic American image of Uncle Sam saying \u201cI Want You for\u00a0U.S.\u00a0Army,\u201d much of the work of the Creel Committee remains infamous — it has been\u00a0said by historians<\/u><\/a> to have inspired the propaganda efforts of Hitler\u2019s government in Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Brinker](\"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/32487667-4bef-4b00-aef8-661d63054f70\/trump-2-ht-er-260928_1790634352111_hpEmbed_11x6.jpg?w=375 "\\"Brinker")
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