Trump’s taxpayer-funded ads and past presidential PSAs, side by side

Three television ads that began airing last week end with the words “Paid for by the U.S. Government,” and each one puts President Trump at the center. Democrats in Congress say they are illegal campaign ads; the White House says they are public service announcements (PSAs), like the ones earlier presidents aired. I sat down with the spots and with the White House list of older ads, because senators had taken sides quickly and I wanted to see the ads for myself. Here are the new ads and the older ones they are being compared to, so you can weigh them for yourself.

What is on the air now

The first ad, which critics have nicknamed “Love Me” after the song playing under it, opens with Trump pledging to “defeat communism, socialism and Marxism in America,” over pictures from his second term and on-screen claims about tax cuts, manufacturing and police. A second ad uses audio from a Trump speech at Mount Rushmore and ends with “This is only the beginning of the golden age of America.” The third, in black and white, has been called the “Final Battle” ad in news reports. It is nearly identical to a Trump campaign ad from 2024, with Trump saying he will “demolish the deep state,” “expel the warmongers” and “liberate America from these villains.” The main change from the 2024 version is the ending: the request to join the campaign is gone, and the government disclaimer is in its place. None of the three ads asks anyone to vote, and Trump is not on the November ballot.

The first ad names three ideas. Communism, in theory, is a society in which the public owns farms and factories in common. Socialism is a broad term for systems in which the government or the public owns or controls major parts of the economy. Marxism is the set of ideas from Karl Marx, the 19th-century German writer, that communist movements drew on.

The ad-tracking firm AdImpact counted about $2.5 million spent on the three ads in their first seven days, on broadcast and streaming, including Sunday political shows and NFL games. The Associated Press reported that the Department of Homeland Security has committed $20 million to the ads. The money comes from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the 2025 tax-and-spending law, and was meant for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The AP got that figure from a person familiar with the plan. No contract has been published.

A White House spokesperson told CBS News the ads remind Americans “to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad.” A White House release on Sept. 25 made the historical case: “When prior Administrations utilized the airwaves, it was called ‘public education.’ When this Administration promotes pride in our country, many of those same voices call it ‘propaganda.’”

Objections have come from both parties. Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Chris Murphy of Connecticut said using government money “to create or air political ads like the ones that have been running over the last few days is illegal.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said the ads “shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” the AP reported, and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina compared them to ads run by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban. On Sept. 29, Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming blocked a Democratic resolution condemning the ads, pointing to the PSAs of Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden.

What the law says

Every year’s spending bills forbid federal agencies to use their money for “publicity or propaganda purposes” that Congress has not authorized. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, reads that ban to cover three kinds of material: anything “purely partisan,” meaning designed to help a party or a candidate; self-praise by an agency or official; and covert propaganda, where the government hides that it made the message. An agency is allowed to explain a program Congress told it to run. A GAO opinion is advice to Congress and carries no penalty on its own. The GAO has not issued one on these ads. Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, filed a complaint about them with the GAO on Sept. 28.

Four ethics lawyers told FactCheck.org the ads are “clear attempts to boost Republicans’ chances in the impending midterm elections,” and rejected the public service label. Two of them held ethics jobs in past White Houses: Richard Painter under President George W. Bush and Norman Eisen under President Obama. Both have since been public critics of Trump. Painter later ran for the Senate as a Democrat, and Eisen served as a lawyer for House Democrats in Trump’s first impeachment.

What earlier presidents put on the air

The White House release cites Bush, Obama, Biden, Wilson and Roosevelt, and Sen. Lummis cited Clinton. I kept only ads the government paid to air, because paid airtime is what is in dispute now. The two exceptions are the wartime examples the release cites. I also added Trump’s own first term for comparison.

Bill Clinton. In 1998 Congress created the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign and gave it to the White House drug policy office. It bought television, radio and print ads telling teenagers not to use drugs. Congress spent more than $1.4 billion on it through 2006, according to the GAO. An evaluation paid for by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found no evidence it lowered teen drug use.

George W. Bush. In 2004 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spent about $12.5 million on television and print ads that encouraged seniors to learn about the new Medicare drug benefit, the GAO found. That March the GAO told Congress the ads were not illegal propaganda. It also said they left out costs, such as an annual fee of up to $30 for the temporary drug discount card that seniors could use until the benefit began in 2006. Two months later the GAO found that a separate HHS product broke the law: video packages made to look like news reports, which ended with a paid narrator saying, “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan reporting.” The release also cites Bush-era anti-drug and anti-terrorism ads that aired during the Super Bowl.

Barack Obama. HealthCare.gov ads in 2015 and 2016, during the yearly sign-up period for health coverage, featured ordinary people describing what they paid. One of them, “My Story, My Savings,” first aired Nov. 2, 2015, and is listed on iSpot.tv, a service that tracks television ads. In 2015 the GAO found that a different Obama-era effort, the Environmental Protection Agency’s social media campaign for its clean water rule, broke both the propaganda ban and a ban on lobbying, partly because it passed off the agency’s messages as coming from supporters.

Donald Trump, first term. In 2020 HHS signed a contract worth about $250 million for a coronavirus ad campaign that officials said would “defeat despair” about the virus before Election Day. Democrats in Congress called it political. The ads that began running in December 2020 featured Dr. Anthony Fauci and the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams, the trade publication FiercePharma reported.

Joe Biden. The “We Can Do This” campaign asked Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The first four ads began airing on April 1, 2021, on broadcast, cable and digital outlets. HHS put its cost at $377 million from April 2021 to March 2022. The ads featured doctors and ordinary Americans, and President Biden did not appear in them. In October 2024, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee put total HHS COVID messaging near $900 million and said some of its claims about the vaccines went further than the science supported.

Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. The release goes back to the two world wars. I have not checked whether any of their airtime was paid. Wilson’s Committee on Public Information used posters, films and volunteer speakers during World War I. Roosevelt’s Office of War Information used films, radio and posters during World War II, and war bond drives used all three.

The record side by side

How to judge for yourself

Administrations of both parties have bought airtime, and the GAO has found fault with some of them. The GAO’s tests point to three questions you can ask of any government ad. Who is on screen? What does the ad ask you to do? Does it explain a program or service Congress created? Ask those questions of the new ad above and of “My Story, My Savings,” which you can find on iSpot.tv, and use the table for the other campaigns. Then decide for yourself whether all presidential PSAs are the same.