Lead report from Roll Call
What happened
The Trump administration used twenty million dollars from U.S. Customs and Border Protection funding to run television advertisements featuring President Trump ahead of the midterms. Lawmakers and ethics experts raised questions about the legality of using government funds for campaign style ads. Public Citizen filed complaints with the FCC and FTC demanding that broadcasters cease airing the advertisements.
Outlets across the spectrum agree that the Trump administration used federal taxpayer money intended for Customs and Border Protection to pay for television advertisements featuring President Trump.
Left-leaning outlets like The New Republic and The Nation heavily emphasize that the advertisements constitute illegal election propaganda and theft of homeland security funds. Center outlets such as Roll Call and PBS NewsHour focus on the bipartisan criticism and the specific accusations made by congressional appropriators regarding the funding source. Right-leaning outlets like the Washington Examiner report on the confirmation of the funding source while noting the resulting backlash from lawmakers ahead of the midterms.
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Center · Roll Call
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Lawmakers cry foul over publicly funded Trump TV ads
The White House is using Customs and Border Protection funding to run pro-Trump political advertisements, Democratic appropriators said Tuesday. The funding comes from last year’s massive GOP budget reconciliation law and was intended for CBP, said House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and House Homeland Security Appropriations…
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left: 10 · center: 6 · right: 2. Counts describe displayed outlets, not independent investigations or the accuracy of their reporting.
Source context: The White House is using Customs and Border Protection funding to run pro-Trump political advertisements, Democratic appropriators said Tuesday. The funding comes from last year’s massive GOP budget reconciliation law and was intended for CBP, said House Appropriations ranking me…
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President Trump is personally selecting which government-funded ads his administration is airing ahead of the midterms — with more to come, Axios has learned."This is just the beginning," an administration official told Axios.Why it matters: The seemingly partisan nature of the taxpayer-funded ads — which come a little more than a month before the midterms…
It turns out that President Trump took money for his self-adulating ads from the Department of Homeland Security. The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House paid for multiple pro-Trump ads specifically with money from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The ads in question praise the president and highlight claims of his achievements in office.…
President Donald Trump’s administration paid for TV ads showing him in a favorable light using money intended for U.S.
Chris Lehmann But as brazen and authoritarian as the provenance of these ad spots are, they seem likely to backfire.
Critics have called the ads “propaganda,” but the White House says they’re “public service announcements.”
They clearly violate the intent of the law. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be easy to stop.
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is spending taxpayer money on propaganda ads. What’s happening? Over the weekend, the Trump administration aired a 30-second spot of Trump…
Following the appearance of a second television ad boosting the image of President Donald Trump and paid for by government funds, Public Citizen filed a complaint with the FCC, FTC, individual broadcasters urging media companies to immediately stop airing the ad.Public Citizen also filed a second complaint with the U.S. Government Accountability Office…
President Donald Trump has become the subject of bipartisan pushback after another taxpayer-funded television ad aired during at least two Sunday NFL games. “We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country,” Trump says in the ad. “We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains…
‘Shockingly Corrupt’ PSAs House and Senate Democratic appropriators are unleashing on the Trump administration and confirming reports that the Trump...
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The White House is using Customs and Border Protection funding to run pro-Trump political advertisements, Democratic appropriators said Tuesday. The funding comes from last year’s massive GOP budget reconciliation law and was intended for CBP, said House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and House Homeland Security Appropriations…
Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee accused the White House of using Customs and Border Protection (CBP) funding to air political ads just weeks out from the November midterm elections. President Trump has received pushback from across the aisle after launching a 30-second commercial in which he said, “Together we will defeat communism,…
The Department of Homeland Security has tapped $20 million to pay for the campaign-style ads glorifying President Donald Trump that have drawn widespread criticism from Republicans and Democrats as a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars that likely runs afoul of anti-propaganda law.
President Trump has faced criticism after fronting adverts which were paid for by the US government.
"Balance of Power" focuses on the intersection of politics and global business. On today's show, AI Now Institute Senior Fellow for Economic and National Security Aya Ibrahim says Nvidia's new agent safety platform is a notable step, but cautions there is no one-size-fits-all solution to AI security risks, even as companies roll out new safeguards. Cook…
NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with former White House ethics czar Norman Eisen about the ethical and legal questions raised by new Trump administration advertisements, which are funded by taxpayer money.
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The White House has tapped a pot of federal taxpayer dollars meant for Customs and Border Protection to fund advertisements promoting President Donald Trump. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who chairs the Appropriations Committee, confirmed that the money was earmarked for CBP after Democrats accused the Trump administration of using taxpayer dollars to fund…
The ads, which were paid for using public money, have sparked a litany of concerns from Democrats and some Republicans ahead of the midterms.
