Trump personally helped orchestrate taxpayer-funded ads promoting him and his policies, source says

President Donald Trump personally directed the controversial, taxpayer-funded video ads promoting himself and his administration’s policies, including helping select the images and videos used, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Two Trump advisers familiar with the ads said they were created internally by the White House video team — part of the communications team, responsible for the administration’s public messaging.

Appearing just over a month before the November midterm elections, the ads sparked bipartisan criticism of how the Trump administration spends taxpayer dollars.

“It’s a great message. I like that message, but it shouldn’t be funded with taxpayer dollars,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters at the Capitol on Monday.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas echoed the sentiment: “It’s not even a touchy issue. »

The White House has largely defended the ads, saying they are akin to public service announcements released by previous administrations on Medicare, Obamacare and Covid-19 vaccinations. Officials insisted they were “clearly not campaign ads.”

“These public service announcements are intended to remind Americans to love their country and understand what is worth fighting for, at home, at our borders and abroad,” a White House spokesperson said Monday.

But these images are undeniably intended to promote Trump, presenting him as a warrior fighting against existential threats. And the latest appears almost identical to a video Trump posted on Truth Social in January 2024, during his third presidential campaign.

This most recent ad shows Trump walking down a hallway while audio plays of him saying “this is the final battle.”

“We will drive out the communists, the Marxists and the fascists. We will get rid of the sick political class that hates our country. We will eliminate the fake media and we will free America from these bad guys once and for all,” Trump said in the ad, echoing comments he made during a Veterans Day speech in 2023.

The version on Truth Social has six additional seconds that include the Trump campaign logo and a number to text. The text “Paid for by the US Government” appears on screen at the end of the new version of the ad.

Several members of Trump’s political operation said they were unaware of the ads until they aired. But another source rejected the idea that anyone was being kept in the dark — pointing out that the president spoke about the ads to several aides and advisers and insisted they were not made in secret.

The latest ad – which aired during at least two NFL games on Sunday, during Fox’s broadcasts of the Washington Commanders-Seattle Seahawks game as well as the Carolina Panthers-Cleveland Browns game – is the third government-funded message in recent days to be captured by media tracker AdImpact.

An ad that began airing Wednesday featured quickly edited photos and videos of Trump over an audio recording of him denouncing communism and socialism. The on-screen text touted his administration’s accomplishments, including “reviving America’s manufacturing industry.”

“The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. “We should be proud of our country.”

A second ad features video of Trump at Mount Rushmore where his voice is heard saying: “Never before has any nation celebrated a triumph as magnificent as this.” »

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in an article on X that the ads “may constitute criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes.”

And Raskin, who will gain congressional subpoena power in November if Democrats win the House, said Trump is not the only one who should be investigated over these messages. He said the creation of these ads was a “violation of the Hatch Act for any government employee who worked on it or used government resources to make it.”

“It’s stupid, stupid, stupid beyond belief,” a former Trump campaign official told CNN. “These guys are all going to be subpoenaed. It’s going to be bad.”