Taxpayer-funded pro-Trump advertisements costing more than $1.4 million have drawn growing criticism from legal experts and members of the president’s own Republican party, who question whether the campaign breaches federal spending laws.
The White House has defended the three television and streaming adverts as public service announcements, while refusing to say which part of the US government is paying for them. The campaign is nearing at least $1.5 million in public spending, according to estimates cited in the material.
John Thune, the Republican Senate majority leader, said the adverts should not have been funded by taxpayers. “It shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” he told reporters.
Senator Mike Rounds, another Republican from South Dakota, said: “It would not have been something that I would have done. And I know that the White House is not covered by the same guidance that we are, but it’s not something that I would have done.”
Several legal experts said the broadcasts appeared to conflict with federal laws restricting the use of congressionally appropriated money for “publicity or propaganda”, as well as rules limiting partisan political activity by government employees.
They argued that the adverts differed from public service campaigns run by previous administrations because they were not intended to help people access a particular government programme.
White House compares adverts with past public service campaigns
The first advert began airing last Wednesday and features footage of Donald Trump discussing the defeat of communism. On-screen messages promote what it calls the “largest tax cuts in history”, the revival of American manufacturing and the defence of law and order and police.
A second advert uses night-time images of Mount Rushmore alongside clips and quotations from a speech Mr Trump delivered during the Fourth of July weekend, while a third shows the president walking down a corridor as he warns of a “final battle” against “globalists” and “warmongers”.
The final advert is described as virtually identical to a spot used by Mr Trump’s Republican re-election campaign in 2024. Each broadcast ends with the wording: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
AdImpact, which monitors media spending, estimated that the adverts had so far cost more than $1.4 million and appeared on television networks across the country. The total could be higher if some networks treated them as political advertising.
White House communications director Steven Cheung defended the campaign on X, writing: “Don’t let the Fake News get away with their lies about our epic Public Service Announcements that have been running on tv.”
The White House also pointed to public service campaigns under George W Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, including adverts about Medicare, subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and Covid-19 vaccinations.
It said the current broadcasts were “very clearly not campaign ads; President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action”. The White House described them instead as a reminder for Americans to love their country and understand why it was worth defending “at home, at the border, and abroad”.
Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics professor at Washington University in St Louis, said the adverts were not comparable with the earlier examples because they did not focus on helping the public benefit from a specific government scheme.
“These ads are nothing more than government propaganda, aimed at helping Trump,” she said.
Richard Painter, who served as a White House ethics official under Mr Bush, said the broadcasts were a more serious concern than the previous Medicare campaign, which he said had itself tested the limits of appropriate government messaging.
“You watch all three ads, they’re sheer propaganda,” Mr Painter said. “This is increasingly looking like what authoritarian governments do to promote their leaders.”
Republican and Democratic lawmakers raise concerns
Democrats on the Senate and House appropriations committees have demanded that the adverts be withdrawn and asked for details of the money spent producing and airing them.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called the latest broadcast “an absolute violation of what a democracy is supposed to look like”. In a Senate speech, he said: “Americans sat down to watch football, not to be force-fed Trump’s propaganda on their own dime.”
Other Republicans have also criticised the spending. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said no public official should use government money for private adverts promoting themselves.
Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky wrote on X: “Don’t worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the President has been done before and is completely legal… in banana republics.”
The criticism comes as the administration has expanded its advertising purchases, including during college football and National Football League programming. With Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress, however, the material says oversight before November’s midterm elections is considered less likely.
