Folks, I almost spilled my coffee reading this one. President Donald Trump has been personally involved in creating those taxpayer-funded video ads that have been airing recently, and I’m not surprised. A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Trump has been helping to select the imagery and videos used in the ads, which are meant to promote his administration’s policies. The White House video team, which is part of the communications team, has been creating the ads in-house.
The ads have generated bipartisan criticism, with many questioning how the Trump administration is spending taxpayer dollars. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters, “It’s a great message. I like the message, but it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.” GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas echoed that sentiment, saying, “It’s not even a close question.” The White House has defended the ads, saying they are akin to public service announcements past administrations have put out about Medicare, Obamacare, and Covid-19 vaccinations.
The latest ad shows Trump walking down a hall as audio plays of him saying “this is the final battle.” He also says, “We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.” The ad is nearly identical to a video Trump posted on Truth Social in January 2024, during his third presidential campaign.
Multiple members of Trump’s political operation said they were unaware that these ads were coming until they aired. However, another source pushed back on the notion that anyone was kept in the dark, noting that the president had spoken about the ads to multiple aides and advisers. The latest ad aired during at least two NFL games on Sunday, and it’s the third government-funded message in recent days to be captured by the media tracker AdImpact.
The White House has broadly defended the ads, saying they are educational and unapologetically patriotic. A spokesperson said, “We should be proud of our country.” However, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said the ads “may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes.” Raskin also said that the creation of the ads was a “Hatch Act violation for any government employees who worked on it or used government resources to make it.”
In conclusion, the controversy surrounding these ads is not going away anytime soon. With the midterm elections just around the corner, it’s likely that we’ll see more of these ads in the coming weeks. And who knows, maybe Trump will even start selling merchandise with his campaign logo on it – after all, as he would say, “it’s going to be huge, just huge.”
Armchair patriot. Believes in the free market, cold beer, and that there’s always a guy named George behind every CNN segment.
Former remote-throwing champion turned #1 couch commentator on liberal panic in the media. Born in Texas (or so his mug says), he earned a degree in Fake Newsology & Beer Philosophy from YouTube University.
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