An overwhelming 86 percent of American voters disapprove of their tax dollars being spent on political adverts featuring the president ahead of an election – as Donald Trump has done recently – according to a poll.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey found that more than four-fifths of U.S. citizens took exception to the practice, compared to just nine percent who thought it was an appropriate use of public funds.
The $20 million series of 30-second ads recently put out by Trump are marked “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
One, repurposed from the 2024 presidential race, shows him marching down a corridor looking stern as audio from a rally speech declares: “This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government.”
Other spots compile a number of his attacks on democratic socialism, recycle patriotic remarks he made on the Fourth of July promising “the beginning of the golden age of America” over aerial footage of Mount Rushmore and recount the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in January.
The ads quickly attracted criticism as soon as they began airing last month given their close proximity to the midterms, leading the White House to defend them by arguing they “are clearly not political” and merely patriotic “public service announcements” that do not contain an overt “call to action.”
Trump himself responded to the uproar last week by telling reporters in the Oval Office he would “gladly pay the money” if the spots were found to have been funded improperly.
He then took to Truth Social Sunday to say he would pay for them through his own MAGA Inc PAC instead.
“The Radical Left is upset with the fact that I am taking Ads, which I consider to be a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A., and paying for them with U.S.A. money,” the president explained.
“This is a rather standard thing to do but, rather than doing that, although nothing will make them happy, I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”
His announcement has not stopped the Democratic National Committee suing him for what it called a “blatant violation of the statutory ban on the use of appropriations for 'publicity or propaganda purposes.”
“With less than 30 days remaining before the midterm election and millions of public dollars apportioned to pay for propaganda ads still unspent, the DNC has no choice but to take action in defense of free and fair elections,” the committee wrote in its complaint.
The watchdog group Common Cause, the Service Employees International Union and Alabama Democratic candidate Robert Hunter have meanwhile come together to launch a lawsuit of their own to stop the ads, arguing that they amount to unlawful and unconstitutional “propaganda.”
Senate Democrats also referred to the ads by the same term in a September 24 letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, calling them “the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea” and “an egregious and illegal misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.”
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin has suggested that government employees who worked on them may have violated the Hatch Act, barring them from partisan activity, while ex-White House ethics lawyer Richard W Painter said they could even amount to an impeachable offense for Trump.
Republicans too have expressed disquiet. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said they should not have been paid for by taxpayers while Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds and outgoing Kentucky Sen. Thomas Massie have all separately voiced their disapproval. Massie said they were worthy only of “banana republics.”
Even the president’s own AI prompt, America.gov, could not sign off on them. When asked by The Independent last week, “Can the president use taxpayer money for his own campaign ads?,” it responded in the negative.
“No. Ordinary taxpayer money – agency budgets, White House funds, or other appropriations – cannot be used to pay for a president’s ad campaigns,” it said.
“Federal ethics and appropriations rules treat campaign ads as partisan political activity, not official government work.”
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