post<\/a> on his social media site on Monday, Trump defended the advertisements, which cost at least $1.5m in federal funds and were aired ahead of the US midterm elections on November 3.<\/p>\nRecommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
Trump said he considered the advertisements to be \u201ca positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.\u201d, but that they would no longer be funded by taxpayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
MAGA Inc is Trump\u2019s political war chest and had amassed more than $400m by the end of July.<\/p>\n
However, on Tuesday, Trump appeared to equivocate when reporters confronted him about the advertisements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did you change your mind, sir, on the taxpayer-funded ads, and will you reimburse the government for the millions of dollars already spent?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ads were really good. They were promotion for the country, done by many presidents before. So we\u2019ll decide,\u201d Trump responded.<\/p>\n
The announcement came as ethics experts and lawmakers from both \u2060parties have criticised the three nationally broadcast advertisements and called for independent investigations.<\/p>\n
The advertisements have run during football games as recently as Sunday and during other programming.<\/p>\n
One features Trump declaring that \u201cAmerica will never be a communist country\u201d, \u2060while a chorus repeats the words \u201clove me\u201d. Another combines \u2060images of Mount Rushmore with footage of Trump praising a \u201cgolden age of America\u201d.<\/p>\n
The advertisements end with a disclaimer saying they were paid for by the US government.<\/p>\n
Democratic lawmakers said last month that the White House transferred $20m in Homeland Security Department funds to air \u2060the advertisements, including one that closely resembles a 2024 Trump \u2060campaign ad, and sought independent probes.<\/p>\n
California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday called \u200cfor an independent investigation, calling it a \u201cstaggering misuse of public funding and breach of public trust\u201d after the calls for a probe.<\/p>\n
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer also called on Trump to reimburse the public for funds already spent.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump must return this money to the American people and there must be a full investigation into this gross waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars,\u201d he told The Associated Press on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, a \u200cRepublican \u200cnamed to his position by Trump, last week said the advertisements were appropriate and rejected a request to investigate them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Move comes after ethics experts criticised three nationally broadcast ads and called for independent investigations. By Reuters and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":923615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1376,893,43,44,714,41,39,42,40,772,1690],"class_list":["post-923614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923614","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=923614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}