Trump Cancels Taxpayer-Funded Midterm Hype Ads Focused on Himself

After facing backlash from some members of his own party, President Trump says taxpayers will no longer be paying to run a number of television advertisements heavily featuring himself. The ads focused almost entirely on Mr. Trump’s record, and included voiceovers from some of his own 2024 campaign speeches. The total cost of running the two ads on conservative television channels like Fox News and Newsmax cost taxpayers more than $10 million, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. Both 30-second spots were criticized as being clearly political messages aimed at boosting the president, his record, and Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms.“Together, we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America,” Mr. Trump says in one of the two ads. Dozens of photos of Mr. Trump then flash across the screen only briefly pausing to highlight parts of Mr. Trump’s record. “Largest Tax Cuts In History,” reads one. “Reigniting American Manufacturing,” reads another. It ends with UFC owner Dana White, a friend of the president, declaring that the president is the “toughest most resilient person” he has ever known.Another ad is simply a black-and-white video of the president staring directly into a camera as he walks down a hallway. The voiceover was taken from one of Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign speeches. Mr. Trump says in that ad that America will wage its “final battle” against “globalists” and “warmongers.” That ad — like the first one — ends with the text, “Paid for by the U.S. Government” at the bottom of the frame. On Thursday, Mr. Trump announced that MAGA Inc., not the taxpayer, would begin footing the bill for the ads. “The Radical Left is upset with the fact that I am taking Ads, which I consider to be a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A., and paying for them with U.S.A. money,” the president wrote on Truth Social Thursday night.“This is a rather standard thing to do but, rather than doing that, although nothing will make them happy, I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.,” he continued. Several Republican senators condemned Mr. Trump’s use of taxpayer money to run the ads. “It’s a great message. I like the message,” the majority leader, Senator John Thune, told reporters last week. “But it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.” “I hate it. I’ll tell you, it feels like Viktor Orbán talking to the Hungarian people. There’s no place for that sort of” ad, Senator Thom Tillis told reporters. “It made no sense to me. If it were, you know, some clear message that was going to [be] … a real public service message, that’s fine, but that was not that.”“I mean, none of it made sense to me,” Mr. Tillis said. “I don’t think any public official, including President Trump … should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” Senator John Kennedy said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” last weekend.

Trump Cancels Taxpayer-Funded Midterm Hype Ads Focused on Himself

Trump Cancels Taxpayer-Funded Midterm Hype Ads Focused on Himself

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