At 250 years old, America is still awesome, and promoting America is patriotic. Donald Trump became president (twice) for two main reasons: He loves America, and he is incredibly adept at self-promotion.
Those two things sparked controversy in recent days through what the administration calls public service announcements and what critics call taxpayer-funded political ads. A series of TV spots started airing last Wednesday because Trump wants to celebrate America and his administration’s achievements, and he also knows that a Democrat win in November could happen, followed by Impeachment 3.0 and an invigorated nationwide push for socialism.
In a statement, the White House asserted, “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.”
Also, according to the White House, “The attacks on President Donald J. Trump’s public service announcements are highly dishonest. The announcements are very clearly not campaign ads; President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action. Instead, the announcements are a reminder for Americans to love their country and know why it’s worth defending — at home, at the border, and abroad.”
The administration points to similar examples from prior administrations of both parties going all the way back to Woodrow Wilson. I personally wouldn’t point to Wilson as a good example of almost anything, but okay.
On the other hand, the three ads borrow from Trump’s 2024 stump speeches and campaign clips. One spot is virtually identical to a 2024 ad. He promises to battle “the warmongers,” “globalists,” and “deep state” actors. “We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists,” Trump declares. “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.” He also says, “America will never be a communist country.”
At the end, there’s a disclosure: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” Accounts vary on the price tag, but it’s approaching $1 million.
Trump’s administration insists that fighting communists and fascists is simply a pro-American message, and in a sense, it absolutely is. There’s nothing more antithetical to the founding principles we just celebrated on Independence Day than the Democratic Socialists of America’s platform.
Yet Trump’s message is also inherently political given that one of the two major political parties has so thoroughly embraced Marxism. In that sense, the administration’s contention that “the announcements are very clearly not campaign ads” is not true.
There’s no “call to action” in most ads for political candidates, either — just information about them or, more frequently, attacks against their opponent. But those are clearly political ads.
In any case, the TDS Democrats are all too happy to object.
“The advertisement does not have a clear official government purpose and appears to run afoul of federal prohibitions against the use of appropriated funds as part of ‘a general propaganda effort designed to aid a political party or candidates,’” wrote New Hampshire Democrat Senator Maggie Hassan in a letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Wiles received a similar letter from the top Democrat appropriators in both chambers. Washington Senator Patty Murray, Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, and Maryland Representative Steny Hoyer wrote, “This is the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America, and it is an egregious and illegal misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.”
Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin went further, posting on X, “This may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes. 18 U.S.C. § 1641. It is a Hatch Act violation for any government employees who worked on it or used government resources to make it.”
The Hatch Act excludes the president and vice president, but it does limit partisan activity with government resources.
The objectors are not just Democrats. “I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” opined Senator John Kennedy, the always entertaining Louisiana Republican. “Now, the White House sees it differently. But I think there ought to be a rule that you can’t — well, there probably is a rule — that you can’t spend public money to promote yourself.”
He then joked that opposing Trump means he “may end up with a sombrero on my head” — a reference to last year’s White House tomfoolery with Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer.
It’s interesting that Kennedy brought up Noem, too. Last year, she launched an expensive and glitzy ad featuring herself, paid for with taxpayer dollars, and Trump summarily fired her for that and other transgressions.
The bottom line: Trump’s campaign administration should not have used taxpayer funds for these ads.
MAGA Inc., Trump’s primary super PAC, ended August with an eye-popping $415 million in the bank. The Republican National Committee has $125 million. Why not use a million of that instead of spending tax dollars? Why give Democrats the ammunition (again) to use against him?
I recently wrote vehemently against Trump’s $5,000 “dividend” payment. That scheme to directly pay voters $1.2 trillion in funny money when we’re $40 trillion in debt is far more offensive than a million bucks for some TV ads.
But I’ve spared some outrage for Democrats, too. For them to suddenly discover that spending taxpayer money to buy votes is wrong is beyond rich. Joe Biden mugged taxpayers — after a Supreme Court rebuke — so he could pay off student loans for his constituents. Were Raskin, Murray, Hoyer, and the rest upset about that? Not for a moment.
Final note: I know it’s different because it’s optional, but taxpayers can send some of their tax return to presidential campaigns. So it’s not as if taxpayer money isn’t already used by political candidates.
