A pair of Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to investigate TV ads promoting President Trump that have been funded by the federal government.
In a letter sent Wednesday, Reps. Jamie Raskin and George Whiteside asked the independent agencies to provide an analysis of how much the ads cost and who paid for them, and to determine if any laws were broken in their production and airing.
Separately, a group of Senate Democrats led by Sen. Patty Murray is proposing legislation called the “Penalties for Propaganda Act” that would cut $20 million in funding from the White House budget office every time the administration uses taxpayer money to pay for anything considered political “propaganda.”
“If the president is going to defy federal law to run propaganda celebrating himself—and his budget director is going to allow it—there must be consequences,” Murray said. “It is not too much to expect the White House Budget Office to respect the law and the basic principle that tax dollars should not fund political ads.”
The first of three pro-Trump TV ads began airing on September 23, and features images of Trump as he vows, over a chorus of voices singing “love me,” to protect Americans from a variety of purported threats, including “communism, socialism, and Marxism.” Two more ads have been shown since then, one of which is a repurposed campaign ad from Trump’s 2024 presidential run.
The White House has described the ads as public service announcements meant to promote national pride, and they display notices that they were “paid for by the U.S. government.”
Raskin and Whiteside offered a very different interpretation of the messages. “The American people are apparently paying for Donald Trump to create desperate preelection propaganda,” the lawmakers wrote. “Both Congress and your agencies have a responsibility to immediately investigate this shameless theft of public funds and violation of multiple federal statutes, including the Hatch Act.”
As the lawmakers explain, the Hatch Act of 1939 “prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in pernicious political activities.” In addition to the Hatch Act, the lawmakers said the ads appear to violate the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026, which prohibits “the use of federal money to pay for government propaganda”; the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits the federal government from spending funds without authorization from Congress; and a variety of federal criminal statutes that prohibit the theft of federal funds.
“President Trump is obviously desperate for the American people to ‘love’ him, a problem that goes beyond your jurisdiction,” the lawmakers said in their letter. “But stealing taxpayer dollars to pay for Mr. Trump’s narcissistic ego trips is plainly illegal. Your agencies have an important responsibility to hold accountable members of his Administration who violate the laws and policies under your purview.”
Asked about the ads on Wednesday, Trump defended them, saying that he’s not running for office or promoting a particular candidate. “When I’m talking about making America great, making our country great, that’s a countrywide ad,” he said. “That’s an ad for the spirit of our country.”
Trump added that he would cover the costs of the ad if he had to. “Now, if somebody said that that’s wrong, I’ll gladly pay the money,” he said, “but these are ads for the country.”