President Donald Trump’s administration paid for TV ads showing him in a favorable light using money intended for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an official and a top Republican senator confirmed to NBC News.
The source of the funding for the controversial ads the White House has described as public service announcements was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, referred requests for comment to the White House, which did not immediately respond.
The unusual ads — one of which is nearly identical to a 2024 Trump campaign ad — include disclaimers stating they were paid for by the U.S. government. The administration’s apparent use of taxpayer money to produce ads that resemble campaign advertisements has drawn bipartisan criticism.
“It’s a great message. I like the message,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Monday of the most recent ad, “but it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday only Trump would have “the audacity to force Americans not only to watch his propaganda, but to pay for it.”
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, confirmed the official’s account of the source of the funds, saying that “it was taken out of funding that was supposed to be for Customs and Border Protection” in Trump’s so-called big, beautiful bill, which Republicans passed along party lines in 2025.
Collins, who faces a difficult re-election bid this fall, said the Appropriations Committee she chairs had no role in the money that the White House used. In fact, she said appropriations bills to fund the government typically have restrictions against using one account for another purpose.
“That’s why the administration went around the appropriations process and used an account that was part of the reconciliation bill,” Collins said in the Capitol.
The first of the ads aired earlier this month and featured Trump describing how he wanted to “defeat communism,” set to the song “Love Me” by JMSN. (Lawyers for JMSN on Monday sent a cease-and-desist letter to the White House telling it to stop using his music.)
The second spot closely tracks a 2024 Trump presidential campaign ad. It shows Trump walking down a hallway as he asks people in a voiceover to join him in his “final battle” to “demolish the deep state” and “expel the warmongers from our government.”
The political ad-tracking firm AdImpact has estimated that the administration has spent more than $1.7 million to run the ads.
Earlier in Trump’s term, DHS used taxpayer money to run a series of ads featuring then-Secretary Kristi Noem encouraging immigrants living in the United States illegally to self-deport.
Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., who provided a key vote to pass the megabill, cast doubt on the wisdom of Trump’s decision when asked if pulling the money from CBP was a good move.
“Well, if that’s exactly what happened, probably not,” Justice said, while adding that he’s not an expert on the legality of the move. “But at the same time, I don’t know the particulars to say, well, that those dollars can be used that way, or they can’t be used that way. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“I can’t imagine how smart the people in the administration are that they’ve done something that’s just going to fly right in their face,” Justice said. “I can’t imagine that they’ve done something that they know is not right, not ethical, not whatever. I just couldn’t imagine they’d do that. They’re too smart for that.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who announced his retirement last year after clashing with Trump on the megabill, tore into the president’s decision to fund those ads with taxpayer money.
“I hate it. I tell you, it feels like Viktor Orbán talking to the Hungarian people. There’s no place for that sort of thing,” Tillis said, while adding that Trump could have used political resources if he wanted to run a political ad. “If it were, you know, some clear message that was going to appeal to the broader, a real public service announcement, that’s fine. But that was not that.”