{"id":918243,"date":"2026-10-02T20:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T20:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/918243\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T20:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T20:38:21","slug":"trump-admin-creates-at-least-13-ads-for-taxpayer-funded-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/918243\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump admin creates at least 13 ads for taxpayer-funded campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The Trump administration has created at least 13 campaign-style ads as part of its controversial taxpayer-funded, multi-million-dollar effort to promote President Donald Trump and his policies.\n <\/p>\n

\n Yet-to-be-aired spots include a trio of ads highlighting the US military and operations in Iran and Venezuela, one called \u201cGod Made Trump\u201d and another recapping the UFC fight he hosted at the White House. Republicans and Democrats alike have questioned the wisdom of spending so much taxpayer money on the ads, which the White House has defended as public service announcements.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN has obtained clips of 12 ads, which range from 15 seconds to three minutes long, including two that have already aired. They appear in a Dropbox account \u2014 which was shared with CNN \u2014 run by LMD, the agency that has been given the government contract for the ad buys. Each ends with \u201cPaid for by the U.S. Government\u201d at the bottom of the screen. Another ad that is not in the Dropbox account, \u201cFinal Battle,\u201d has also aired in recent weeks.\n <\/p>\n

\n The three ads that have already aired have appeared on TV networks including CBS, CNN, MS NOW, Fox News and Fox. It\u2019s not clear if all of the ads will air on television or digital platforms.\n <\/p>\n

\n The White House did not respond to a request for comment.\n <\/p>\n

\n While each of the ads has a different theme, many of them include imagery of the president and audio with positive reviews from news reports, which is likely to intensify criticism that the campaign is using taxpayer dollars to help Trump personally. They also include patriotic images \u2014 including the cap toss at a military graduation, fireworks over Mount Rushmore and military flyovers.\n <\/p>\n

\n First lady Melania Trump, who has been a rare presence at the White House during the president\u2019s second term, is featured in many of the ads. There are also images from Trump\u2019s reciprocal tariff announcement, the border wall, his escalator presidential-campaign announcement and the tongue-in-cheek framed photograph of an auto pen signifying former President Joe Biden on Trump\u2019s \u201cPresidential Walk of Fame.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"As<\/p>\n

\n CNN previously reported<\/a> that Trump has personally driven<\/a> the video ads, including helping select the imagery and videos used, according to a source familiar with the matter. Two Trump advisers familiar with the ads said that they were being created in-house by the White House video team \u2014 which is part of the communications team, responsible for the administration\u2019s public messaging \u2014 though at least one of them was produced by a pro-Trump meme group.\n <\/p>\n

\n The ads that have aired so far have spurred widespread condemnation, even as the White House indicates it plans to ramp up its efforts. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a post on X that the ads \u201cmay be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes.\u201d If Democrats win control of the House next year, he\u2019ll gain congressional subpoena power.\n <\/p>\n

\n Even some Republicans have criticized the ad campaign.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cLook, if you want to spend money out of your super PAC or other campaign account to communicate that message, that\u2019s fine. It\u2019s not an appropriate PSA. It\u2019s just not, you know, it\u2019s not how we should be spending taxpayer dollars,\u201d said Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.\n <\/p>\n

\n Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has said \u201cno\u201d the ads are not an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. \u201cIt\u2019s not even a close question.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"As<\/p>\n

\n The \u201cUFC 250\u201d ad heavily promotes the company and the June fight that Trump hosted at the White House, prominently featuring UFC CEO Dana White as well as the fighters, the lit-up \u201cclaw\u201d over the Octagon and the championship belt.\n <\/p>\n

\n The \u201cMaduro\u201d spot intersperses a speech by Nicolas Maduro with appearances by Trump and his team at Mar-a-Lago following the Venezuelan dictator\u2019s capture.\n <\/p>\n

\n And \u201cMilitary Hype\u201d shows images of fighter jets and unclassified video of what appears to be missile launches. It also includes Trump\u2019s February speech announcing the war with Iran, a conflict which remains deeply unpopular with the American people.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces,\u201d Trump says in the ad, now seven months into the war.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some of the ads are starkly political: The two-minute \u201cKing of the Jungle\u201d video features images of Trump\u2019s perceived political enemies \u2014 former Presidents Barack Obama and Biden, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, all Democrats. There\u2019s video of lions hunting in the wild and a bald eagle sweeping down on the water. A cover of \u201cIn the Air Tonight\u201d by In This Moment plays. And Christopher Walken\u2019s lion speech from the 2002 film, \u201cPoolhall Junkies,\u201d is interspersed.\n <\/p>\n

\"As<\/p>\n

\n One of the spots, a three-minute-long ad titled \u201cGod Made Trump,\u201d was broadcast during Republicans\u2019 midterm convention in Dallas. In it, Trump is presented as a messianic figure with a riff on Paul Harvey\u2019s \u201cGod Made a Farmer.\u201d It was created by Dilley Meme Team, according to NPR<\/a>, and began going viral earlier this year.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle the deep state, and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to ruffle the feathers,\u201d the voiceover says, \u201cSo God made Trump.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"As<\/p>\n

\n The ad \u201cResilience\u201d shows Trump at multiple points in his life, including early in his New York real estate career, an appearance he made on \u201cThe Oprah Winfrey Show,\u201d his descent down the Trump Tower escalator as he announced his candidacy in 2015 and then his time at the White House. In the audio, a reporter refers to him as \u201cthe bodyguard of Western Civilization.\u201d His 2023 mugshot from a Fulton County, Georgia, sheriff\u2019s office features prominently, along with video of an assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pennsylvania.\n <\/p>\n

\n An estimated $2.5 million in taxpayer dollars<\/a> have already been spent on the ads, according to a leading political ad-tracking firm, AdImpact. The actual cost of the taxpayer-funded ad campaign is even higher, but can\u2019t be fully ascertained because public service announcements are subject to different public disclosure rules than campaign ads.\n <\/p>\n

\n A total of $20 million has been allocated for the effort. The money for these ads is coming from Customs and Border Protection, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n Watchdog groups have said the ads mark a clear violation of appropriations law restricting the use of federal funding for propaganda or partisan communications, but it\u2019s not clear if outside groups have standing to file a lawsuit. Though the ads have received bipartisan criticism, Congress \u2014 which groups said had the clearest lane to provide some accountability \u2014 has not acted to block the ads.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration has created at least 13 campaign-style ads as part of its controversial taxpayer-funded, multi-million-dollar effort…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":918244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-918243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}