Senate Majority Leader John Thune joined fellow Republicans in saying White House ads promoting President Trump should not be paid for with taxpayer dollars ahead of the midterms.
Thune told reporters on Monday that he likes the message in the spots. He drew a hard line on the funding. “It’s a great message. I like the message. But it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” he said, according to Newsweek.
The White House has aired three advertisements touting the president’s policies and framing them as public-service announcements. The midterms sit just over five weeks away. The Associated Press reported that spending on the first ad alone reached at least $443,000.
That price tag, and the timing, put the ads under bipartisan scrutiny. Several Republicans who usually back the administration’s agenda said the same thing in plain terms: a strong message does not justify using public money to promote an elected official.
Thune is the highest-ranking elected Republican to break with the White House on the ads. The South Dakota senator did not attack the content. He objected to the checkbook.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn put it even more bluntly to The Hill. “We all know you’re not supposed to use taxpayer money for that purpose,” Cornyn said. He lost his primary to Trump-backed Attorney General Ken Paxton, yet still drew the same bright line on public funds.
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy made the case on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday. He grouped the president with other officials and applied one standard to all of them.
Kennedy told viewers:
"I don't think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves."
He added that the White House sees it differently, but argued there ought to be a rule against spending public money to promote yourself, and that such a rule probably already exists.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who chose not to run for reelection, told reporters the ads feel “inappropriate.” He said the White House does not need a crowdfunding page to pay for them, and that using taxpayer dollars “feels like Viktor Orbán,” per The Hill.
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie went further in a written statement. “Don’t worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the President has been done before and is completely legal...in banana republics,” Massie wrote.
Former Rep. Justin Amash, who left the Republican Party years ago, called the spots “a taxpayer-funded propaganda TV spot” and “the most shameless administration of our lifetime.” Conservative commentator Erick Erickson said the ads are “not a public good” and a “waste of taxpayer dollars.” Former RNC chair Michael Steele labeled them propaganda, illegal, unethical, and politically tone deaf.
Those objections land in the same place: the message can be patriotic, and the funding still wrong. Fiscal discipline and lawful use of appropriations are not optional just because the ads praise the country.
A White House spokesperson pushed back in a Monday statement to Newsweek. The administration cast the ads as public-service announcements, not campaign spots.
The spokesperson said:
"These public service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad. The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country."
One ad shows Trump speaking at Mount Rushmore. Another features UFC CEO Dana White calling him the “toughest, most resilient person that I've ever met.” The spots include a critique of communism, pledges to “demolish the deep state,” expel “the warmongers from our government,” and talk of a “golden age of America.”
Federal agencies may use taxpayer funds for public-service announcements when the spending serves an authorized government purpose. Federal appropriations law, including the purpose statute, generally bars agencies from using funds for unauthorized publicity or propaganda, especially communications that promote partisan interests. The Hatch Act separately restricts political activity by covered federal employees. Critics say some of these ads cross that line by promoting political interests rather than simply informing the public about government programs.
No formal charges, court orders, or completed enforcement actions are reported as filed. The dispute remains political and legal argument, not a finished case.
White House operations have drawn close attention throughout this term, including how the building manages press access and daily messaging, as when the White House locked CNN out of Air Force One for a Trump trip.
California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna said Monday on CNN that the ads amount to ethics violations. Then he invited more of them. “Go spend as much money as you want putting Donald Trump on TV,” Khanna said, urging the president to talk about the Iran war and rising gas and diesel prices on air across America.
That jab sits beside separate Republican pressure points. Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson, running for Senate with Trump’s endorsement, posted that Iowans “are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran.” Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers also called for an immediate end to that war amid rising fuel prices.
Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, running in a Miami-area district, said in a recent video that the administration’s immigration enforcement “have gone too far,” comparing her stance to Lincoln on slavery and Reagan on communism while rejecting amnesty. Trump has publicly rejected other Florida Republican immigration proposals, including when Trump rejected a Florida Republican’s migrant legalization bill.
Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, running for governor, removed references to Trump from his campaign website. His campaign said the changes reflected a focus on affordability, insurance costs, and government transparency. Trump called related coverage a “fake story” and warned that if Florida believed Donalds had “dropped” him, Donalds would lose, and that would be “a terrible thing because he’s going to be a fantastic Governor!”
Staff-level debates over messaging and media strategy have also surfaced inside Trump’s orbit, including when Navarro urged the Trump team to rethink Fox News guest access.
Columbia University political science professor Robert Y. Shapiro told Newsweek that voters who are not already supportive of Trump “will see this as more to do with political advertising and not the public service of the president.” He also said that, given larger factors hurting Trump and Republicans in the upcoming election, “any effect of this will be marginal.”
Recent surveys underscore the headwinds. An American Research Poll of 1,100 adults from September 16 to 20 found only 29 percent giving Trump positive marks and 68 percent disapproving, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points. An Emerson College poll of 1,000 likely voters from September 21 to 22 showed 39 percent approving and 58 percent disapproving, a net of -19 points, plus or minus 3 points. A YouGov and The Economist survey of 1,401 registered voters from September 18 to 21 put approval at 35 percent and disapproval at 62 percent, plus or minus 3.4 points.
The White House still frames the spots as educational patriotism, not a campaign rescue mission. The Biden administration once ran an HHS advertisement promoting the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, a comparison the current debate inevitably invites when agencies spend on message ads.
Day-to-day management of the West Wing remains a high-stakes job, something underscored in coverage of how Susie Wiles has run Trump’s White House through personal and political pressure.
Trump has also floated dramatic changes to the physical plant and press setup at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, including talk of restoring the White House briefing room as an indoor swimming pool, another reminder that this administration treats the building as both stage and headquarters.
The core fight is simple. Republicans who support the president’s agenda still say public money is not a campaign account. Calling an ad a “public-service announcement” does not erase the purpose statute or the public’s right to know when their dollars support political messaging.
Thune, Cornyn, Kennedy, Tillis, and Massie did not run from the message. They rejected the funding stream. That is the accountable position: praise the country, sell the record on the campaign side of the ledger, and keep the Treasury out of the buy.
If the ads are truly educational, Congress and the agencies can defend the legal purpose in the open. If they function as pre-midterm promotion, taxpayers should not be the supporters, period.
Conservatives who want limited government cannot shrug when the remote fills with official praise spots paid by the same people already stretched at the pump and the grocery line.