White House Reruns 2024 Campaign Ad Paid for by Taxpayers

The White House is airing a nearly identical version of Trump's 2024 campaign ad under a 'Paid for by the U.S. Government' tag weeks before midterms.

Government.' CNN and NBC News both report the video is nearly identical to an ad Trump's 2024 presidential campaign posted to Truth Social in January 2024, minus the closing seconds that carried his campaign logo and a text-to-join number. It aired during at least two NFL games on Sunday.

The surprising element is that the administration repurposed a partisan campaign creative asset verbatim and stamped it with a government payment line just over a month before the November midterms. CNN reports the Truth Social original ran six seconds longer, including Trump's campaign logo and a number to text, while the government-funded version substitutes the 'Paid for by the US Government' tag. The White House insists the spots are 'public service announcements' and 'very clearly not campaign ads,' pointing out that Trump is not on the ballot and that the ads contain no call to action.

The ad is the third government-funded spot tracked in recent days by the media tracker AdImpact. CNN reports an earlier 30-second spot airing Wednesday paired clips of Trump denouncing communism with onscreen text promoting the 'largest tax cuts in history' and 'reigniting American manufacturing,' while a second features Mount Rushmore footage from his Fourth of July speech. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle's wire report, spending on the latest ad had already topped about $319,000 per AdImpact, and the White House has not released the specific source of government funding used to air the spots.

NBC News reports that federal law generally bans using public funds for political advertising and requires political advertisers to submit public disclosures, but because the administration classifies the spots as PSAs, it is unclear whether those disclosures are available. The watchdog group Common Cause suggested the ad could violate rules against taxpayer-funded 'propaganda,' with its policy vice president Carol Evans telling CNN one need not be a legal scholar to question using taxpayer funds to promote the president's image this close to an election.

Criticism has crossed party lines. NBC News reports congressional Democratic appropriators, including Senators Patty Murray and Jack Reed and Representatives Rosa DeLauro and Steny Hoyer, wrote to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles calling the ads an 'egregious and utterly illegal misuse' of taxpayer dollars reminiscent of 'North Korea.' CNN reports Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy said public officials should not spend public money on private ads for themselves, while Kentucky GOP Representative Thomas Massie called the ad 'ominous.' The White House dismissed the criticism as 'deeply dishonest.'

The midterms on November 3 will test whether the ad blitz moves voters, and Ohio is one battleground where it lands: the Columbus Dispatch via Yahoo reports Trump will hold a rally at Butler High School in Vandalia on October 3 ahead of the tight Senate race between Republican Jon Husted and former Senator Sherrod Brown. Expect continued legal and congressional pressure over disclosure of funding sources, and watch whether more repurposed campaign creative follows, since CNN and NBC News both note the White House has declined to elaborate on how the ads are funded.