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President Trump said Monday, after weeks of criticism from both parties, that taxpayers will no longer pay for the TV ads promoting him and his administration, and that he and his super PAC will cover the cost going forward.
Getting into it: In a Truth Social post, Trump defended the ads as “a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he and MAGA Inc., his super PAC with more than $400 million on hand, would pay for them instead. A White House official clarified that the PAC will only fund ads moving forward and won’t repay the government for spots that already aired, which ad-tracking firm AdImpact estimates cost about $10 million.
The ads, which ended with the line “Paid for by the U.S. Government,” ran during football games and shows like “Saturday Night Live,” and one was nearly identical to a 2024 Trump campaign ad. The New York Times reported last week that the order to pay for the ads with public money came straight from Trump to his budget director, and that on Sept. 19 the budget office moved $20 million out of Customs and Border Protection’s funds into a new line labeled “One Big Beautiful Bill Commemorative Events” to cover them.
The reversal came hours after Vice President JD Vance defended the ads, comparing them to the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act campaign and saying, “I don’t think there’s anything unusual or unorthodox about it.” But critics from both parties had called the spending improper, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who said the ads “shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” and Sen. Thom Tillis, who compared Trump to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Sen. Maggie Hassan, who first demanded answers from the White House, said the ads “were clearly wrong and clearly illegal” and that Trump “should also immediately repay the taxpayers for the amount already spent.”
This all comes as California Attorney General Rob Bonta called for an outside probe Monday into what he called a “staggering misuse of public funding.” The watchdog group Public Citizen has also asked federal investigators to look into whether the ads broke laws against government propaganda, though FCC Chair Brendan Carr said last week he had no problem with the ads and turned down a request to review them.
