White House claims pro-Trump ad it paid Fox to air was ‘public service announcement’

The White House on Friday defended its decision to use taxpayer funds to buy airtime on Fox News for a White House-produced, pro-Trump ad that some Democrats said could be illegal government propaganda aimed at influencing voters in the upcoming midterm elections.

In a lengthy statement sent to news outlets, the White House press office insisted that versions of the ad, which feature audio of Trump urging voters to help him “defeat communism” and a whirlwind video review of his second term, were simply routine “public service announcements” like those produced by previous administrations.

However, while the Trump administration ad features the president in almostevery frame, and includes words of praise for him offered by a prominent supporter during the 2024 campaign, none of the advertising from three prior administrations the White House called similar featured any partisan messaging or showed images of Trump’s predecessors.

By contrast, the 30-second version of the pro-Trump ad broadcast on Fox News this week uses audio of Trump telling supporters in Las Vegas last month: “Together we will defeat communism, socialism and Marxism in America,” and a rapid-fire montage of images of Trump beneath the onscreen text: “America will never be a communist country,” as a chorus sings the words “love me”, taken from a song of that name by JMSN. In the original speech, Trump explicitly identified the enemy as “Dumocrat communists in Congress”.

The last 10 seconds of the ad include text at the bottom the screen saying: “Paid for by the US government.”

The ad aired on Fox News this week as Trump hosted the leader of the world’s largest communist nation, China, for a lavish state visit.

In its new statement, the White House insisted that versions of the ad celebrating Trump, which were also posted on official government accounts on TikTok and YouTube before airing on Fox, “are very clearly not campaign ads; President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action. Instead, the announcements are a reminder for Americans to love their country and know why it’s worth defending – at home, at the border, and abroad.”

In fact, the version of the ad broadcast on Fox clearly includes partisan messaging that celebrates Trump’s presidency and features his rhetoric comparing Democrats to communists in the run-up to congressional elections in which he recently urged supporters to “pretend I’m on the ballot” and vote for his party.

Unlike the initial versions of the ad posted on social media, the broadcast version includes onscreen text boasting about what Trump calls his accomplishments. “Largest tax cuts in history,” one slogan reads. “Reigniting American manufacturing,” says another. “Defend law and order and police,” comes next.

The broadcast version of the ad also closes with a tribute to Trump from Dana White, the Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive, who can be heard saying: “He is the toughest, most resilient human being I have ever met in my life.” White used that formulation to describe Trump multiple times during the 2024 presidential election campaign, most notably to sing Trump’s praises at the Republican national convention.

While the White House argues that the ad is an “unapologetically American” public service announcement “aimed at the country – not a line on the ballot”, the actual images used are not of the grandeur of the country or its people, but just its current president.

In fact, slowing down the rapid-fire montage reveals that the flash-frame imagery in the ad is exclusively of Trump commanding the stage in a bizarre mix of moments during his second term, including: overseeing the US military raid on Venezuela; hosting a state dinner for Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman; accepting the Fifa peace prize; pardoning a turkey; announcing a new class of US navy ships to be named for himself; attending a Kennedy Center performance; awarding the Fifa Club World Cup trophy; showing Cristiano Ronaldo his presidential walk of fame; and addressing McDonald’s owners.

Trump and a man on stage with a big gold prize.

A white fluffy turkey with Trump beyond it.

The paid advertising by prior administrations which the Trump White House compared its ad to on Friday were uniformly non-partisan public information campaigns. A 2002 Super Bowl ad from the White House office of national drug control policy, which connected drug use by young Americans to funding terrorist attacks, made no mention of political parties or then president George W Bush. A 2015 ad showing people how much money they could save by signing up for health insurance at healthcare.gov did not show or mention Barack Obama. A 2021 ad from the department of health and human services to promote the Covid-19 vaccine similarly made no mention of the president at the time, Joe Biden.

The White House defense of its ad comes after the representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and constitutional scholar, suggested on social media that the ad may violate federal laws including the Hatch Act.

“This may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes,” Raskin wrote. “It is a Hatch Act violation for any government employees who worked on it or used government resources to make it. It is blatantly unethical under numerous federal ethics provisions proscribing the use of government resources for political campaigns.”

AdImpact, a firm that tracks political ads, told the Wall Street Journal that the pro-Trump ad aired on Fox News in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami and Washington DC, as well as on Newsmax in Chicago.

The administration has spent at least $443,000 so far to air that ad, according to the Associated Press.

AdImpact reported on Friday that the White House also paid to broadcast a second ad featuring Trump, with excerpts from his 3 July address at Mount Rushmore. The second ad, which aired on the rightwing network Newsmax on Friday, includes images of the president’s supporters waving Trump flags and ends with the president repeating a slogan he has used dozens of times to describe his second administration: “This is only the beginning of the golden age of America.”

JMSN, the Detroit-born artist who wrote and performs the song Love Me, wrote on social media that it had been used “illegally”, because he was not approached by the White House for permission. “I would never authorize my music to be used for ANY political agenda or campaign,” the singer wrote. “I am looking at lawyers handling this.”

The Guardian wp:paragraph