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Trump ads paid for by US government allegedly violate anti-propaganda laws
FCC unlikely to stop Trump ads described as illegal taxpayer-funded propaganda.
Broadcasters should be ordered to stop running Trump commercials that appear to violate US laws, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said today in a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission. The ads appear to violate laws against using taxpayer funds for propaganda and a law that restricts political activity by federal government employees, the group said.
“The most recent of these taxpayer-funded campaign ads, entitled ‘The Final Battle,’ is a copied version of an ad that the Trump campaign committee issued in the 2024 election,” Public Citizen wrote. “In dead serious black-and-white footage, Trump is seen marching down a corridor with a stern look, while the audio blares: ‘This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government.’ A notice at the bottom of the screen announces: ‘Paid for by the US government.’”
Trump also says in the ad, “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.” It uses the same video and audio from an ad Trump used in 2024, with the main difference being that the 2024 version was paid for by Trump’s campaign committee instead of the US government. The White House claims its recent ads are public service announcements.
The updated version of the “Final Battle” ad aired during NBC’s Saturday Night Live, Fox News Sunday, and several college and NFL football games this past weekend, the Public Citizen letter said. Department of Homeland Security funds were used to pay for the ads, according to a Wall Street Journal report that said, “President Trump personally pushed for the ads and has been involved in their creation.” The other ads include one in which Trump says, “America will never be a communist country,” and another in which he says, “the United States of America is the most successful, most accomplished, most exceptional nation ever to exist in human history.”
Public Citizen, the nonprofit founded by Ralph Nader in 1971, said it “strongly urges the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission to direct broadcasters to stop broadcasting these apparently illegal campaign advertisements.” We contacted the FCC and FTC about the Public Citizen letter today and will update this article if either provides any comment.
It’s highly unlikely that the FCC or FTC would order broadcasters to stop running the Trump ads. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s history of attacking broadcasters that Trump dislikes suggests he is more likely to threaten the licenses of broadcasters that refuse to run the ads. Both Carr and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson also backed Trump’s expansion of power over nominally independent agencies like the FTC and FCC.
Senate Democrats said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin today that Trump is “illegally using Americans’ tax dollars to fund government propaganda and to put ads from his 2024 campaign back on the air. So far, it appears DHS has dedicated $20 million to this outrageous scheme, tapping funds provided to US Customs and Border Protection in Republicans’ ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ for commemorative events relating to border security.”
The senators’ letter cited an estimate from analytics firm AdImpact “that over $1.7 million in federal funds have already been spent simply airing these ads.”
Broadcasters would likely be wary of rejecting the Trump ads. ABC owner Disney, which is fighting an FCC proceeding that could block renewal of its station broadcast licenses, said in a lawsuit that its editorial decision-making has been affected by FCC threats.