Trump ads still appear taxpayer funded days after pledge to personally pay – Newsweek

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Published
Oct 07, 2026 at 01:49 PM EDT
updated
Oct 07, 2026 at 05:29 PM EDT
Associate News Editor
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is suing President Donald Trump over his multimillion dollar ad campaign, alleging that the White House is using taxpayer funds for partisan political propaganda ahead of the midterm elections.
The move comes in the wake of Trump’s promise to stop using taxpayer funds and pay for his own ads. But days after the president’s pledge, promotional spots continue to air across national television networks bearing the disclosure line: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., names Trump, the White House Office, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Homeland Security as defendants.
The DNC alleges the administration is unlawfully using appropriated funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes” and argues that the campaign-style advertisements give Republicans an electoral advantage ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The lawsuit is asking the court to declare the spending unlawful and to prohibit Trump and his administration from continuing to use appropriated funds to develop and air the advertisements.
Trump said Monday that he had decided to “pay for them myself” in reference to the ads, and pledged to use money raised for MAGA Inc. to fund the advertisements. The statement came after his administration faced criticism over taxpayer-funded television spots featuring Trump and promoting his administration’s policies.
But the White House told Newsweek on Tuesday that Trump was not referring to reimbursement for advertisements already paid for with government funds. The White House official said that Trump’s statement was not a promise to reimburse taxpayers, although the official did not clarify what the president meant by saying he would “pay for them myself.”
The administration has rejected the characterization of the advertisements as campaign propaganda, calling them public service announcements.
“Presidential Public service announcements are nothing new,” the White House said, citing advertising campaigns under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as wartime public-information efforts under Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The examples cited, however, involve campaigns that served specific public-information or public-health purposes, including explaining Medicare prescription drug benefits and communicating public-health guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Trump advertisements at the center of the current controversy have drawn criticism because they feature Trump prominently and promote his administration’s accomplishments and political themes.
The controversy stems from a $20 million contract awarded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to the LMD Agency for a “National Media Campaign.” The resulting series of high-production television spots highlights the administration’s policies, economic rhetoric, and military actions, featuring Trump prominently throughout.
Critics quickly condemned the campaign as an illegal use of government funds to run self-promotional propaganda ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Legal scholars pointed to long-standing federal statutes, including restrictions on using taxpayer dollars for publicity or partisan campaign activities, arguing that the ads crossed clear ethical and legal boundaries.
Under mounting pressure, Trump announced early this week that his primary super PAC, MAGA, Inc., would fund future spots.
“The Radical Left is upset with the fact that I am taking Ads, which I consider to be a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A., and paying for them with U.S.A. money,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “This is a rather standard thing to do but, rather than doing that, although nothing will make them happy, I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.”
He also defended the spots during an Oval Office press exchange, calling them, “promotion for the country.”
While the White House maintains that political funds will shoulder the burden moving forward, the administration faces sharp questioning over the millions of public dollars already spent. Estimates indicate that several million dollars in taxpayer funds were deployed during the initial run of the campaign.
When asked directly by reporters whether MAGA, Inc. or the Trump campaign intended to reimburse the U.S. Treasury for money already spent, the president declined to commit.
“We’ll decide,” Trump told reporters.
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The DNC’s complaint alleges that the $20 million used to pay for the television campaign was drawn from U.S. Customs and Border Protection funding intended for border-security-related “commemorative events,” which Congress described as including line-of-duty death memorials, agency anniversaries and commendation ceremonies.
The lawsuit identifies at least five advertisements that have aired since late September, including spots featuring Trump, his administration’s military actions and his political messaging. One, dubbed the “Final Battle” ad by the DNC, is described in the complaint as nearly identical to a Trump campaign advertisement aired during the 2024 presidential election.
The DNC also alleges that the advertisements continued to run even after Trump’s announcement that MAGA Inc. would take over their financing. According to the complaint, the “Maduro” ad aired on October 6 and the “Final Battle” ad aired during ABC and Disney+’s broadcast of “Dancing with the Stars” that evening, as well as during “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday morning. The ads continued to carry the disclosure: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
The DNC argues that the continued use of federal funds gives Trump’s political operation an electoral advantage by allowing MAGA Inc. to preserve money that could otherwise be spent supporting Republican candidates and opposing Democrats.
“The Trump Administration’s illegal propaganda campaign also imposes a competitive harm on the DNC,” the committee wrote in its complaint.
The lawsuit also points to Trump’s repeated efforts to make the 2026 midterm elections a referendum on his presidency. The DNC cites Trump’s calls for voters to “pretend that I’m on the ballot,” arguing that the advertisements are part of that broader political strategy even though Trump himself is not a candidate in the November election.
Despite Trump’s high-profile announcement that he’d pay for the advertisements, viewers across multiple media markets reported seeing the original taxpayer-funded ads during primetime broadcasts over the past 48 hours. However, the continuation of the ads may be due to standard industry timelines:
A White House official confirmed that while future campaign cycles will be routed through MAGA, Inc., existing media reservations made through the DHS contract would likely finish playing out their current runs.
Congressional Democrats have signaled that they plan to launch formal oversight inquiries into the DHS contract, demanding a full accounting of the spent funds and raising the possibility of legislative action to compel repayment.
In a joint statement, House Democrats condemned the move, branding it a “misuse” of taxpayer funds.
“This is the sort of misuse of government resources that federal law explicitly prohibits. The American people should not be forced to foot the bill for self-serving political messaging,” the statement issued by Representatives Henry Cuellar and Rosa DeLauro said.
In a joint letter sent to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles demanding the ads be taken off the air immediately, Democrat lawmakers stated that the “divisive campaign commercial paid for by the U.S. government defies the Hatch Act’s very purpose and violates federal appropriations laws prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds for publicity or propaganda purposes.”
Several Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Texas Senator John Cornyn, Louisiana Senator John Kennedy and North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, also expressed concern over Homeland Security funds being used for national video messaging.
Thune told reporters that, “I like the message. But it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.”
Kennedy agreed, saying on CBS’s Face the Nation, that “I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Samantha Beech and Sam Wilson.
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