(Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman/The Bulwark | Photos: Getty, Shutterstock)

AS AMERICANS STRUGGLE TO PAY for gas, groceries, and other necessities, Donald Trump has found a new use for their tax dollars: promoting himself and his party in the midterms.

In the last week, the Trump administration has spent more than $1.7 million in federal funds to run three ads on TV, including on Fox News during primetime, on a Sunday-morning political show, and on NFL games. The White House calls these videos “public service announcements.” In reality, they’re obvious campaign ads. And Trump, through taxation and unauthorized spending, is forcing Americans to pay for them.

All of the ads glorify Trump. The first one depicts him in silhouette, in grainy black-and-white, and in statuesque illumination. The images echo those of fascist regimes in the early twentieth century.

The second ad shows him on two giant screens, with military officers gazing up at him, as he spoke at Mount Rushmore in July. The scene looks like a North Korean pageant.

The third ad follows him as he strides down a hallway in slow motion, staring into the camera with a strongman’s glare.

All three commercials feature phrases from Trump’s 2024 campaign or from his 2026 rallies for Republican candidates. In the first ad, he declares, “Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America.” In the second, he brags about presiding over “the golden age of America.” In the third, he vows to “drive out the globalists,” “rout the fake news media,” and “throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”

If you plug these lines into an internet search engine, you’ll find them in numerous Trump campaign rallies from 2024 and 2026.

The third ad is the most blatantly partisan. It duplicates, word-for-word and image-for-image, a commercial that Trump’s campaign aired two years ago. The only difference is that Trump’s campaign logo has been clipped from the end and replaced by the words, “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

Like propaganda in other authoritarian countries, Trump’s videos defy reality. The first one shows him standing in front of the words “PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST.” That picture was taken last October, four months before he launched the current war in Iran. The third ad replays his promise, delivered throughout 2024, that he would “expel the warmongers from our government.” Two years later, that promise has been exposed as a lie. But he’s repeating it anyway.

It’s one thing to spread such lies on your own dime. It’s quite another to use public money. Federal law explicitly prohibits the use of U.S. funds “for publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by the Congress.” Democrats point out that Trump’s ads might also violate 18 U.S.C. § 641, which forbids the conversion of federal assets to personal use. Then there’s the Hatch Act, which precludes federal employees from engaging in campaign activities while on the job.

IN DEFENSE OF ITS ADS, the White House has posted a statement denying that they’re campaign commercials. To begin with, says the statement, videos that promote Trump can’t be accused of meddling in the midterms, because “President Trump is not on the ballot.”

That’s a comical excuse. In at least four speeches and interviews during the last six weeks, Trump has explicitly urged his supporters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.”

Second, the White House statement says the ad campaign just “promotes pride in our country” and serves as “a reminder for Americans to love their country.”

Really? Then why does the third ad show Trump pledging to “demolish the deep state”? Is he talking about some other country’s “deep state”? Or is he talking about our own government?

Third, the White House statement claims that Trump’s ads are no different from what other presidents have done. It says, “Administrations of both parties have used public service announcements to explain policy and make the case for the nation’s direction.” As an example, it notes, “The Biden Administration poured hundreds of millions of dollars into ‘We Can Do This’—television, digital, radio, and print spots—to drive a nationwide public health message.” To illustrate Biden’s publicity campaign, the statement links to a Washington Post article that included video of a Biden PSA.

Biden’s PSA is instructive as a contrast to Trump’s ads. Biden never appears in his PSA and is never mentioned. Instead, the COVID-era video shows ordinary people looking sick, isolated, or beleaguered. Then it shows people getting vaccinated and being happy.

Trump’s ads are as far from that public-oriented appeal as you can imagine. They’re all about him. They consist almost entirely of his face and voice. The song played in the first ad is literally titled, “Love Me.”

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Biden’s PSA identifies the government entity that funded it. A message on the screen says, “Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.” Trump’s ads offer no such clarity. They just say they were paid for by “the U.S. Government.” On Monday, NPR’s Tamara Keith said she had asked the White House to identify which department was paying for the Trump ads, but “they have not given us that information.” [Update (September 29, 2026, 1:30 p.m. EDT): The Wall Street Journal reported today that the funding for the ad broadcasts came from the Department of Homeland Security, and specifically from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.]

The date on the Post article is April 1, 2021, because that’s when Biden’s PSA appeared. That was more than a year and a half before the next election. Trump’s ads, by contrast, are airing less than forty days before an election.

Trump’s White House statement says his new ads can’t be construed as campaign commercials, because they don’t deliver a “call to action.” But that omission is part of what makes them political. Biden’s PSA does deliver a call to action. It ends with the message, “Learn more about COVID vaccines at cdc.gov/coronavirus.”

Trump’s ads deliver no such message. They don’t encourage you to get vaccinated, help homeless veterans, adopt a child, or do anything else. They just leave you with the general impression, five weeks before the midterms, that you should support Trump. The implication is obvious.

After six years of Trump’s flagrant corruption, it shouldn’t surprise us that he’s diverting public funds to boost himself and his party. It’s just another legal and moral line he thinks he can cross with impunity. In the Biden administration, “We can do this” meant overcoming a pandemic. In the Trump administration, it means the president can do anything he wants.