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In recent weeks, the Trump administration has aired three taxpayer-funded advertisements promoting the Republican president on several television networks, including Fox News, CBS News and NBC News.
Now, according to a new report, the spots are running on CNN and MS NOW, two outlets that have frequently drawn Trump’s ire. Both networks were barred from the White House last month before a federal judge temporarily halted the ban.
Critics say the ads, which are running weeks before the November midterm elections, violate federal law because of their overtly political nature. The White House, meanwhile, has defended them as “patriotic” public service announcements.
One of the 30-second ads, titled “The Country He Loves,” has played on MS NOW in Los Angeles and on CNN in both Los Angeles and New York, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing data from AdImpact.
In the ad, Trump says, “Together, we will defeat communism, socialism and Marxism in America.” The phrases “largest tax cuts in history” and “reigniting American manufacturing” appear on the screen while the song Love Me plays.
Another ad, dubbed “Final Battle” has aired on MS NOW in Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles, and on CNN in Los Angeles. In this spot, Trump vows to “demolish the deep state” and “rout the fake news media.”
All of the Trump-focused spots carry the disclaimer: “Paid for by the U.S. government.”
In total, the administration purchased 38 spots on MS NOW and 10 on CNN, while making thousands more ad placements on other networks over the past week. It has shelled out upwards of $2.87 million on the ads, according to the Post.
The flurry of ads have drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who have questioned why taxpayer money is being used to fund them.
“This may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, wrote on X last week. “It is a Hatch Act violation for any government employees who worked on it or used government resources to make it. It is blatantly unethical under numerous federal ethics provisions proscribing the use of government resources for political campaigns.”
The Hatch Act is a decades-old federal law that restricts partisan political activity by most federal employees.
“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,” Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, told CBS News over the weekend.
Other critics have noted that one of the recent ads appears identical to a 2024 Trump campaign ad.
The White House, however, has defended the television ads as non-partisan.
“The PSAs are clearly not political,” a White House official told The Independent on Wednesday. “The President is not on the ballot and the ads don’t have a call to action.”
“These public service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad,” a White House spokesperson added. “The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country.”
The 80-year-old president told reporters on Wednesday that the ads are “for the country,” though he said he would “gladly pay the money” if the spots were found to have been funded improperly.
