Trump Personally Shaped Government-Funded Ads Airing During NFL Games, Drawing Fire From Both Parties
CNN reports President Trump personally helped create government-funded ads promoting himself, airing during NFL games weeks before the midterms. The spots have drawn criticism from both parties, including senior Senate Republicans, while the White House calls them public service announcements.
What happened
President Donald Trump has personally helped drive the creation of government-funded video advertisements promoting himself and his administration's policies, including helping select the imagery and footage used, a source familiar with the matter told CNN's Kristen Holmes. The ads were produced in-house by the White House video team, part of the communications operation, according to two Trump advisers. The latest spot aired during at least two NFL games on Sunday, September 27, on Fox broadcasts of the Washington Commanders–Seattle Seahawks and Carolina Panthers–Cleveland Browns matchups, and is the third government-funded message captured by the media tracker AdImpact in recent days.
The ad shows Trump walking down a hall while audio declares "this is the final battle": "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." According to CNN, the spot is nearly identical to a video Trump posted on Truth Social in January 2024 during his third presidential campaign, with the campaign logo and text-to number replaced by the words "Paid for by the US Government." The audio echoes a November 2023 Veterans Day speech Trump delivered in Claremont, New Hampshire. Other ads in the series feature Trump denouncing communism and socialism alongside text touting "reigniting American manufacturing," and Trump at Mount Rushmore saying, "Never before has any nation celebrated so magnificent a triumph as this one."
The timing has sharpened the controversy: the ads are running just over a month before the November midterm elections, and multiple members of Trump's own political operation told CNN they were unaware the spots were coming until they aired. Another source pushed back on that account, noting the president had discussed the ads with multiple aides before they ran.
Why it matters
The dispute sits at the intersection of three questions: whether federal money can lawfully fund messaging that resembles campaign material, whether the Hatch Act's limits on political activity by government employees were crossed, and who inside the White House approved the spending. The ads arrive in the final weeks of a midterm campaign in which control of the House is at stake, giving the fight immediate electoral consequences.
The administration's position is that the spots are lawful public messaging. White House officials insisted the ads "are very clearly not campaign ads," describing them as public service announcements comparable to past administrations' ads on Medicare, Obamacare, Covid-19 vaccinations, and George W. Bush's Super Bowl anti-drug campaign. A White House spokesperson said Monday: "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."
Critics in both parties reject that framing. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the ads "may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes" and constitute "a Hatch Act violation for any government employees who worked on it." On Thursday, congressional Democrats on appropriations committees wrote to White House chief of staff Susan Wiles calling the first ad "the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea," demanding it be pulled and a full accounting of the federal funds used. Senior Republicans have joined them: Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters in the Capitol on Monday, "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 called the question of whether taxpayer money should fund such ads "not even a close question," and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said using taxpayer dollars this way "feels like [Viktor] Orbán." Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky posted on X: "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."
How it is being covered
According to ground.news, 14 outlets are carrying the story, with a left/centre/right split of 21/72/7 percent, and 13 of the 14 sources rate high on factuality, including nine rated high and four very high. The outlet's data show a clear blindspot on the right, where only 7 percent of coverage sits, meaning conservative audiences are seeing far less of a story that includes criticism from their own party's senators. CNN broke the reporting on Trump's personal involvement, while Mother Jones has emphasized the unusual breadth of the bipartisan backlash.
What to watch
Watch for any formal response from the White House to the appropriations committees' letter to Susan Wiles, and for whether the administration discloses an accounting of federal funds spent on production and airtime. Watch whether additional government-funded spots air before Election Day, and whether AdImpact captures more of them. Watch the midterm outcome itself: Raskin would gain congressional subpoena power in November if Democrats win the House, turning oversight from rhetorical to investigative. A former Trump campaign official told CNN the exposure is real: "This is dumb, dumb, dumb beyond belief… These guys are all gonna get subpoenaed. It's gonna be bad."
By the numbers
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