EDITORIAL: American taxpayers pay for a 2024 ad the White House only stripped of its logo

A football Sunday

Thirty seconds in black and white

Between two football games, on September 26 and 27, a president walks alone down a hallway and promises the “final battle.”

Thirty seconds. Black and white. In the last second, a line at the bottom of the screen: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

Before that line, his voice vows to “demolish the deep state.” It promises to “expel the warmongers from our government.” It promises to “rout the fake news media.”

In the living room, nothing moves. The remote stays in the hand. The referee’s whistle comes back, and the stadium crowd swells again in the speakers.

The line at the bottom of the screen

That last second is the only one that matters here. It says who pays.

According to PolitiFact, the ad ran during games and TV programs on those two days. According to ABC News, Fox aired it during college football on Saturday, then on Fox News Sunday.

On Monday, on the Senate floor, Democrat Chuck Schumer put it his own way, according to the AP. Americans sat down to watch football. Not to swallow this propaganda “on their own dime.”

The American viewer ordered nothing. Signed nothing. Voted for nothing.

And yet the bill has the viewer’s name on it.

The game was free. The ad was not.

The same ad, in January 2024

A hallway we have seen before

America has seen this hallway before.

Trump posted the same video on Truth Social in January 2024, according to NBC News. He was a presidential candidate then.

PolitiFact notes nearly identical versions in January and October 2024. They ended with a call to text or vote for him.

According to ABC News, the audio comes from a campaign stop in Michigan in June 2023. A candidate’s speech. A candidate’s microphone.

What is missing at the end

In 2024, one line closed the video: “Join President Trump’s fight to save America.” Then came the campaign logo.

In 2026, the video stops just before that. It adds its own line, the government’s.

The hallway hasn’t changed. Neither have the “villains” America must be freed from “once and for all.”

They cut the logo, not the campaign.

Same hallway, new payer.

On the side of whoever pays

A principle, not a party

We stand with the American taxpayer. We stand against the White House’s decision to bill them for a recycled campaign ad. The September 26 and 27 version differs from the 2024 one only in its last second.

It is not the Democratic camp we are choosing. Democrats have been wrong on this ground, and we will say so further down.

It is a principle. Public money does not buy a leader’s face.

Trump has every right to tout his record. His party can pay. The Treasury cannot.

The line is old. It is simple. The party pays for the campaign. The state pays for the state.

The September 25 statement

The decision has no face. It has a signature.

On September 25, the White House put out a statement defending its “public service announcements.” It calls the attacks “highly dishonest.”

On the 27th, its communications director, Steven Cheung, wrote on X that the “Fake News” should not get away with lies about these announcements, which he crowned with a blockbuster adjective.

A blockbuster adjective. That is the word chosen for messages the public pays for.

A president’s face is not a public service.

$1.4 million or $1.7 million

Two floors, one firm

Three ads in less than a week, according to the AP.

An ad on communism, on the air starting Wednesday, September 23. A one-minute ad on Mount Rushmore, drawn from the 250th anniversary speech. A thirty-second ad on the “final battle.”

How much? The White House won’t say.

The only numbers come from AdImpact, a firm that tracks ad spending. They move from one day to the next.

According to the Associated Press, as of September 28, the three ads had cost more than US$1.4 million.

According to NBC News, AdImpact put the spending at more than $1.7 million. ABC News uses that floor the same day.

NBC adds a caveat: the firm doesn’t see every airing, on every cable channel, in every market.

We don’t average. We give the gap: $300,000 between two readings from the same firm.

More than $12,000 a second

According to TIME, citing CNBC and AdImpact, the hallway ad alone had cost more than $362,000. The one built on the song Love Me, by JMSN, nearly $920,000.

The singer, for his part, wrote that he would never authorize his music for a political agenda. According to TIME, his approval apparently was not obtained.

Thirty seconds at more than $362,000. More than $12,000 a second.

The AP also warns that the real amount could be significantly higher, depending on whether networks classified these spots as political.

A floor, then. Not a total.

Every second has a price, and no appropriation has a name.

No appropriation named

The September 24 letters

“Paid for by the U.S. Government.” But which department? Which appropriation voted by Congress?

According to the AP, the White House hasn’t said which part of the government is paying. NBC writes the same.

On September 24, four Democrats on the appropriations committees wrote to chief of staff Susie Wiles. Patty Murray, Jack Reed, Rosa DeLauro, Steny Hoyer.

They demand that the ad be pulled and a full account of the federal funds used. Their line is short: “If President Trump wants people to love him, he can pay for it himself.”

The same day, according to TIME, Sen. Maggie Hassan asked for the cost, the agencies, the contractors and the source of the money.

The letter from the four copies Russell Vought, the budget director. It faults his office for failing to safeguard taxpayer money.

Four days, no answer

As of September 28, nothing. No official amount. No agency. The question still has no number.

Attorney Brett Kappel, an expert in government ethics law, tells PolitiFact that legality depends on which agency’s money is being used.

In other words, keeping quiet about the appropriation means keeping quiet about which rule applies.

No appropriation named, no one held responsible.

Section 718

One sentence in the 2026 law

The rule fits in one sentence. It sits in the 2026 appropriations law, in section 718 of Division E.

No part of any appropriation may be used, “directly or indirectly,” for “publicity or propaganda purposes” within the United States without authorization from Congress.

That is the text the four Democrats cite. According to TIME, appropriations laws have repeated this ban every year since the 1950s.

“The law is not complicated,” they write. In their view, this is not the first time the administration has broken it.

The only way out is authorization from Congress. The White House statement invokes none.

Three bans, and one is enough

The Government Accountability Office, Congress’s auditor, has set the reading. Three things are banned, according to PolitiFact: self-aggrandizement, covert propaganda, purely partisan material.

One is enough.

The hallway ad doesn’t fall under the second ban: it says who pays. That leaves the other two.

Any one of the three breaches makes the spending illegal.

Bush, Obama, Biden, Wilson

The White House list

The White House has a defense. It is not weak, and we give it in full.

Every president has done it, says the September 25 statement. George W. Bush explained his Medicare drug law on television.

Obama promoted Obamacare subsidies and open enrollment. Biden, according to the White House, poured hundreds of millions into a public health campaign.

The statement reaches further back. Wilson had his Committee on Public Information. Roosevelt, his Office of War Information.

Two world-war presidents. Posters, radio, films. The comparison comes from the White House, not from us.

Not on the ballot

Then comes the legal argument. According to an official quoted by NBC, “The president is not on the ballot.” And the ads “don’t have a call to action.”

The statement adds that these announcements are “clearly disclosed.” No hidden source, no front.

“Patriotism isn’t partisan,” the White House concludes.

In the ad, there are “villains” to drive out.

Everyone did it, the White House pleads.

Obama’s EPA, in 2015

December 14, 2015

On one point, the White House is right. And that point bothers its accusers.

On December 14, 2015, the GAO concluded that Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency had violated the propaganda ban.

Its fault, according to the decision: an online campaign that didn’t say the EPA was behind it. Up to 1.8 million potential recipients.

NBC recalls that the GAO also faulted Bush’s Medicare campaign, for failing to properly disclose its source.

A Democrat called out. A Republican too. Both appear on the list the White House waves around.

Here, the source is spelled out

The hallway ad, by contrast, says who pays. In plain words. In the last second.

On covert propaganda, it is more upfront than the Obama EPA campaign. That is true, and we write it.

It is true, and it saves nothing. The payer is spelled out. What the payer buys doesn’t change.

Signing the bill doesn’t make it legal.

This is not a vaccine

The list, item by item

Let’s go back over the September 25 list.

This is not a drug law explained to seniors, as under Bush.

This is not an insurance enrollment period, as under Obama.

This is not a vaccination campaign, as under Biden.

This is not a named federal program the viewer could use on Monday.

This is not information. It is a hallway, a voice and a “deep state” to demolish.

That is the difference.

Self-aggrandizement, the first ban

Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, explains it to the AP. The old announcements helped the public benefit from a specific program. These name none.

For Samuel Bagenstos, a law professor at the University of Michigan, “All these ads do is aggrandize Donald Trump.”

Richard Painter, a former ethics official under Bush, arrived at the White House after the Medicare campaign. According to the AP, he believes it already toed the line, because of misleading information. Trump’s ads, he says, are not about any specific policy.

One talks about the deep state. Another, about communists and Marxists. None says where to sign up.

And Wilson? James Kimble, a Seton Hall professor who studies domestic propaganda, reminds the AP that most Americans no longer look back on that past with pride.

Odd model.

Serving the public is not serving one man.

The seconds that were cut

No call to action

Back to the cleverest sentence in the whole file. The ads “don’t have a call to action.”

That is accurate.

There was one. In January 2024, the same video ended with the invitation to join Trump’s fight. Then the logo. And, according to PolitiFact, the call to text or vote.

Those seconds are missing.

The administration airs the version without the call. Then it cites the missing call as proof.

January 2024, September 2026

In January 2024, the last second said: join him.

In September 2026, it says: you are the one paying.

In between, thirty nearly identical seconds.

Nobody hid the payer’s line. It is the ending that disappeared.

The trick takes no law, no vote, no debate. An edit is enough.

Cutting the call doesn’t cut the campaign.

Five Republicans say no

September 28, in the Senate

The heaviest no came from the president’s own camp.

There is John Thune, the Senate majority leader. On September 28, he told reporters, according to the AP: “It shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.”

There is Mike Rounds, another South Dakota Republican: “it’s not something that I would have done.”

There is John Kennedy, of Louisiana. The day before, on CBS, he said no public official should “spend public money on private ads for themselves.” He put himself on the list, with Trump and Kristi Noem.

There is Thom Tillis, who called it “inappropriate” and compared it to the practices of Viktor Orbán, according to TIME.

There is Thomas Massie, beaten in his primary by a Trump-backed rival. He speaks of “banana republics.”

A no with no follow-through

According to TIME, Kennedy was also aiming at the former Homeland Security secretary, criticized over $220 million in advertising. He doesn’t spare his own.

These five voices are not Democratic. They said no out loud. That is a good move, and we call it one.

And yet a no at the microphone takes no ad off the air.

According to the AP, the Republican chairs of the appropriations committees did not respond. With both chambers in Republican hands, any oversight would have to come from Trump’s allies.

Five Republican voices, and not one invoice.

No referee in sight

The September 25 complaint

On September 25, the group Public Citizen filed a complaint with the GAO and the Office of Special Counsel, the OSC.

The complaint invokes the anti-propaganda law and the Hatch Act, which limits the political activity of federal employees.

The president is exempt from the Hatch Act, TIME recalls. His staff is not.

A complaint to the GAO. A complaint to the OSC. One more complaint on a pile, according to the group.

Public Citizen says it has filed a dozen complaints of this kind with the OSC in a year, all ignored as far as it knows.

A dozen. And the thirteenth…

The one who enforces the law

The experts consulted by PolitiFact say it plainly: with the Trump administration in charge of enforcing these laws, enforcement remains very unlikely.

The one who may have broken the rule is also the one who enforces it.

That leaves Congress. And the calendar.

According to the AP, oversight is unlikely to come before the November midterms.

When the player holds the whistle, nobody referees.

Seen from Quebec

An ally we watch

Why does a Quebec columnist weigh in?

Because Washington is the West’s center of gravity. Its rules hold up those of its allies.

Richard Painter, a former White House ethics official under Bush, tells the AP this looks “increasingly” like the methods of authoritarian governments.

We won’t go that far. We write what the record shows: a public budget paying for a face.

An ally that lets such a simple rule slide teaches something. To its citizens first. To its allies next.

A citizen’s fear

I’ll admit it: what worries me is not the ad. It is the week after.

Three ads in less than a week, according to the AP. The third comes from a campaign. And the fourth?

And yet we get used to a line at the bottom of the screen fast. We stop reading it. We wait for the kickoff.

What we stop reading ends up slipping through.

The invoice before November

An invoice, line by line

We demand one simple thing. The invoice.

The appropriation used. The agency paying. The amount per ad. The networks. The airdates.

That is what the appropriations Democrats asked for on September 24. That is what Maggie Hassan asked for the same day. That is what the Republican majority can demand of its own president.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

And yet the White House answers with Wilson and Roosevelt.

November, the only deadline

Will John Thune’s Senate go as far as demanding that invoice, or will it let the taxpayer pay for the next last second?

The hallway is ready. The edit takes thirty seconds.

Next Sunday, there will be a game, and a commercial break.

Without its logo, the ad now carries the taxpayer’s name.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• Associated Press via Fortune — Thune, Rounds and the cost of the government-paid ads, September 28, 2026
• The White House — defense of presidential public service announcements, September 25, 2026
• Senate Appropriations Committee (minority) — letter to Susie Wiles and section 718, September 24, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• NBC News — the “final battle” ad, a copy of a 2024 campaign ad, September 27, 2026
• TIME — criticism from both parties and the cost of each ad, September 28, 2026
• PolitiFact — public service announcements or propaganda, experts weigh in, September 28, 2026