President Donald Trump in a taxpayer-funded ad that aired September 27, 2026. Screenshot via AdImpact
President Donald Trump has become the subject of bipartisan pushback after another taxpayer-funded television ad aired during at least two Sunday NFL games.
“We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country,” Trump says in the ad. “We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.”
“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,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) posted on X on Sunday night in reaction to the latest ad.
The ad is nearly identical to one Trump posted on Truth Social in January 2024, which included Trump’s presidential campaign logo. In place of the logo is now the message: “Paid for by the US government.” The audio of both ads strongly resembles part of a campaign speech he delivered in Claremont, New Hampshire, in November 2023 in which he used autocratic language, referring to himself as “a very proud election denier.”
“It’s not like they need a GoFundMe page to have the dollars to do that sort of ad and they could do it,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said about the first ad that aired Wednesday. “But using taxpayer dollars, it feels like [former far-right prime minister of Hungary] Viktor Orbán.”
Both Republican lawmakers have a history of criticizing Trump.
On Thursday, congressional Democrats on appropriations committees wrote a letter to White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, calling the first ad “the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea.”
“We write to demand that you immediately take this ad off the air and discipline the Federal employees who knowingly violated Federal law in working on and paying for this advertisement,” they continued, asserting the ad violated anti-propaganda law. “In addition, we demand a full account and breakdown of all Federal funds used to create and air this ad.”
On Friday, the White House called the ads “public service announcements” that are “very clearly not campaign ads” as Trump isn’t on the ballot and the president does not request any action. The White House pointed to other administrations that have run public service announcements to “explain policy and make the case for the nation’s direction,” including President George W. Bush’s anti-drug ads that played during the Super Bowl and President Barack Obama’s ads on the Affordable Care Act.
But as my colleague Sophie Hurwitz noted Friday: “Trump’s supposed PSA says and does very little beyond extolling Trump. Usually, a public service announcement announces something. This one announces pure right-wing vibes.”
