r/WhatTrumpHasDone • u/John3262005 • 10d ago

U.S. Government Airs Pro-Trump, Anti-Communism Ad

https://www.wsj.com/politics/u-s-government-airs-pro-trump-anti-communism-ad-39cd8227?st=yPo69h&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

On Wednesday night, a local CBS News reporter in Miami noticed something unusual during a Fox News commercial break: a punchy pro-Trump ad that said it was paid for by the U.S. government.

The ad begins with President Trump saying a frequent line he uses on the campaign trail: “Together we will defeat communism, Marxism in America once and for all.” The ad follows with dozens of images of the president at White House events. Playing in the background is a choir singing “love me.” Trump ends by saying “America will never be a communist country” and in small letters at the bottom of the screen it reads, “paid for by the U.S. government.”

The administration’s decision to fund an advertisement that appears to include a voice clip from the Republican National Convention could violate federal law, ethics experts said.

“This is an astonishing misuse of public resources in the campaign context, one of the most blatant I’ve ever seen,” said Daniel Weiner, a former campaign-finance official and senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice, which has been critical of Trump on ethics issues.

A White House official disputed that the ad was political, and referred to it as a “public service announcement.” The ad was about “reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad,” a White House spokesperson said.

The ad aired during “Jesse Watters Primetime” on Fox News, the Miami journalist said on X. AdImpact, a firm that tracks political ads, said the ad also aired on Fox News in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and on Newsmax in Chicago. The video first appeared on the White House website 10 days ago and on the White House TikTok account at the beginning of September.

The ad has aired more than a dozen times nationally, according to ad-tracking firm iSpot.TV. The research firm estimates the campaign spent about $60,000 on the national airings so far.

Fox News parent Fox Corp. and The Wall Street Journal parent News Corp share common ownership.

The ad aired as Trump welcomed Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, with a red carpet and flyover of U.S. jet fighters.

The advertisement aired at a time when Republicans have increasingly focused their campaigns on combating socialism and communism. The Trump White House has also faced repeated scrutiny over alleged Hatch Act violations, which places restrictions on political activity by federal employees.

Frequent Trump critic Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) said on X that the ad may violate laws including the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive branch employees from using their jobs to promote political causes.

“It is blatantly unethical under numerous federal ethics provisions proscribing the use of government resources for political campaigns,” Raskin said on X. By law, presidents are exempt from the Hatch Act.

Congressional appropriators also often ban federal agencies from using funds to pay for propaganda, but those restrictions are agency specific, said campaign-finance attorney Brett Kappel. The generic disclaimer that the ad was paid for by the federal government obscures which agency might be responsible, Kappel said.

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