Trump Admin Launches Taxpayer-Funded Ad Praising Trump

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Jason White/ZUMA Press Wire
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

President Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House today and said that the two men have developed a "truly great friendship." In a social media post, Trump also said that Xi "looks strong, vibrant, and fit - Better than ever." The U.S. and China agreed on Wednesday to extend a trade truce set to expire Nov. 10 by two months as longer-term trade talks continue. Xi also announced that two giant pandas from China, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, will arrive at an Atlanta zoo soon, which he said was a sign of the "friendship between the Chinese and Americans."

Here's what else is happening.

ICE Has Wasted Millions on Trump's Immigration Crackdown: Report

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has wasted tens of millions of dollars as it seeks to rapidly increase its detention space for migrants, and the waste will likely continue due to ongoing mismanagement, a government watchdog warned Thursday.

In a new report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal agency, said that ICE has spent billions of dollars to expand its detention capacity as part of President Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States. In one of its major initiatives to build out detention capacity, ICE purchased 11 warehouses for $1.07 billion, but due to poor planning and analysis, the agency now intends to sell seven of those warehouses, wasting more than $20 million in non-recoverable costs.

Waste is evident in some of the other immigration-related initiatives carried out by the Department of Homeland Security, as well, GAO said. As part of an effort to expand prison facilities at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, DHS and the Department of Defense spent $2.85 million on tents that were never used. Millions of dollars were wasted on a plan to open new ICE detention facilities on a military base in Montana, and DHS is reimbursing the state of Florida for its now-closed "Alligator Alley" detention facility at a rate that is 171% higher than ICE's median rate per bed.

Time to make a plan: "As ICE spends the unprecedented multi-year detention funding provided by OBBBA [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] and the Secure America Act, it is critical that the agency uses these taxpayer dollars efficiently and effectively," the GAO report says. "In the absence of a comprehensive strategic plan to guide detention expansion, ICE has wasted funds on unsuccessful detention initiatives and lacks important information about the long-term affordability of its investments."

The GAO offered this advice: "The Director of ICE should develop a comprehensive strategic plan to guide its detention expansion efforts that includes goals, activities, and resource needs."

The agencies discussed in the analysis were provided with a draft of the report, and GAO said that DHS "agreed with our recommendation and discussed plans to address it." DHS also stated that ICE "will develop a strategic plan to guide its detention expansion efforts that includes the key elements we identified, as well as others, such as operational considerations and coordination with stakeholders." However, the ICE plan is not expected to be completed before August 31, 2027, prompting GAO to suggest that "more timely completion may be warranted" given the extraordinary level of funding provided to ICE and the "potential for continued waste of taxpayer dollars."

Trump Admin Launches Government-Funded Ad Hailing Trump

A new TV ad that's reportedly airing nationally just in time for the midterm elections shows President Trump making a 2026 campaign pitch: "Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America," Trump says in the 30-second spot. "America will never be a communist country." The ad goes on to highlight the Republican tax cuts and Trump's promises to rebuild U.S. manufacturing and defend "law and order."

It's pretty standard fare for a Republican election ad this cycle, only Trump isn't on the ballot this year and the commercial doesn't mention any other candidates - oh, and the fine print at the end of the spot says, "Paid for by the U.S. Government."

The government has reportedly spent $14,000 so far to run the ad, according to CNN, which cites data from AdImpact, a media tracking service. The spot reportedly started airing Wednesday on right-wing shows on Fox News and Newsmax. A 15-second version of the ad was posted to the White House channel on YouTube 11 days ago.

It's not clear what part of the government paid for the ad, but the White House reportedly defended the spot in a statement to news outlets that described it as part of "public service announcements" to boost national pride.

"The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic," a White House spokesperson said in a statement cited by CNN. "We should be proud of our country."

The ad's clips of Trump are set against a soundtrack featuring a song titled "Love Me," in which those two words are repeated over and over for maximum subliminal impact. But JMSN, the artist behind the song, was less than proud to have his music in the video. In a post on X, he wrote that he would never authorize his music to be used for any political agenda or campaign and that the song was used without permission. "I am looking at lawyers and handling this internally," he wrote.

Democratic lawmakers are pressing for more information about the ad and warning that it may violate the law.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a post on X that the ad "may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes." He added that any government employees who worked on it or used federal resources to make it violated the Hatch Act and federal ethics provisions.

Another Democrat, Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, sent a letter Thursday to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles requesting details about the cost of producing and airing the ad, the source of the funds, and the federal agencies, officials and contractors involved in making it.

"The advertisement raises deep concerns about the Trump Administration's use of taxpayer dollars and its compliance with federal laws that prohibit the use of appropriated funds for the promotion of a political party or candidate," Hassan wrote, adding, "The advertisement does not have a clear official government purpose and appears to run afoul of federal prohibitions against the use of appropriated funds as part of 'a general propaganda effort designed to aid a political party or candidates'."

Numbers of the Day: 15,903 and 0

As part of the Trump administration's crackdown on alleged voter fraud, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in July that there may be more than a quarter of a million non-citizens illegally registered to vote in just a handful of states, including 15,903 people in Nevada.

"Election security is national security," Mullin said at the time. "As President Trump announced last night, DHS has identified over 250,000 potential non-citizens illegally registered to vote in just four U.S. states. Only Americans should be electing American leaders."

It's not clear where those numbers came from, though, and as The New York Times reported Thursday, Homeland Security later reduced the count of possible non-citizens illegally registered to vote in Nevada to 185. "We've manually reviewed some of the 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not U.S. Citizens," Kimberley Vogt of Homeland Security said in a letter to Nevada officials.

Earlier this week, a deputy attorney general in Nevada sent a letter to DHS saying that even the smaller number doesn't pan out. "As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens," Greg D. Ott wrote.

Francisco Aguilar, the secretary of state in Nevada, said state records do not support DHS's claims about non-citizens registered to vote, and DHS has failed to provide sufficient information to back up its analysis.

"Instead, DHS officials continue their attempts to intimidate election officials into compliance and deter voters with huge claims of fraud with no evidence," Aguilar said in a statement. "Repeating unsupported claims does not make them true."

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