Trump Taxpayer Funded PSA and the Propaganda Ban
by: Marcus Webb

Trump’s Taxpayer-Funded ‘PSAs’ and the Propaganda Ban

The third ad appeared over the weekend, during football games and the Sunday shows. In black and white, President Trump walks slowly down a hallway and promises a “final battle” to “demolish the deep state.” NBC News reported that it is nearly identical to a spot his campaign posted to Truth Social in January 2024. The campaign version ended with an appeal to join “President Trump’s fight to save America.” This one ends with a line of text reading “Paid for by the U.S. government.”

It is the third government-funded Trump ad to air in five days. It also brings a question Congress settled on paper long ago back into play: when does a government message become government propaganda? For more than two decades, the Government Accountability Office has answered that question in formal rulings against administrations of both parties. Those rulings set out what the law actually tests for, and they make clear which parts of this dispute are settled and which are open.

Three ads in five days

According to CBS News, the first ad aired Wednesday, Sept. 23, on Fox News. It opens with Trump pledging to defeat “communism, socialism and Marxism,” set to a song called “Love Me.” By Thursday a second ad, about the U.S. capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was running on national cable and broadcast networks, CBS reported. The hallway ad followed this weekend.

Two things about the campaign are confirmed. The ads carry an on-screen government disclaimer, and the White House defends them. A spokesperson told CBS News the spots are about “reminding Americans to love their country.” A White House official added that they are “clearly not political” because the president is not on the ballot and the ads carry no call to action. Communications Director Steven Cheung called them “epic” on social media, according to NBC News and UPI.

Two basic facts are not confirmed.

Who is paying. The White House has not said which government account funds the ads, NBC News reported. CBS News reported that the government paid for airtime through an ad agency it did not name.

How much it costs. Published figures don’t agree, and they may not measure the same thing. Axios reported an AdImpact estimate of about $14,000 for the first ad’s early run on Fox News and Newsmax. NBC News, also citing AdImpact, put spending on the series at more than $1.7 million, and noted that the firm can’t see every cable channel and market. UPI reported that more than $300,000 went to the hallway ad but did not give a source for the figure. No official accounting has been released.

The one-sentence law, and GAO’s three tests

The rule at issue is a rider Congress attaches to its annual spending laws. In its current form, Section 718 of Division E of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, it bars using appropriated money “for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by Congress,” according to a Sept. 24 letter from four senior Democratic appropriators, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Sen. Patty Murray, Rep. Steny Hoyer and Sen. Jack Reed. Their letter, addressed to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, concerned the first ad and asked the White House to take it off the air and account for its cost.

The statute doesn’t define propaganda. GAO, Congress’s auditing arm, has filled that gap in its decisions, and it applies three tests. Covert propaganda hides the government’s role as the source. Self-aggrandizement is material whose obvious purpose is puffery about an agency or its officials. Purely partisan material is completely political and designed to aid a party or candidate. Those descriptions of the last two tests come from GAO’s 2018 decision on HHS.

These ads name the government as their sponsor, so the covert-propaganda test is not the one in dispute. Each violation in the table below involved undisclosed sponsorship or, in EPA’s case, lobbying as well. None involved an ad built around a president.

Decision Agency, year Finding Why
B-302710 HHS / Medicare, 2004 Violation Prepackaged TV news stories didn’t tell viewers the government made them
B-305368 Education, 2005 Violation A paid contract with commentator Armstrong Williams to promote No Child Left Behind, undisclosed
B-326944 EPA, 2015 Violation Social media campaigns on the Waters of the United States rule broke the propaganda and anti-lobbying provisions
B-329199 HHS, 2018 No violation Videos and posts arguing against the Affordable Care Act were within the agency’s purview

The 2018 decision is the one the White House’s defenders can point to. GAO wrote there that the partisan prohibition “is not a bar” on material with political content or a point of view. Agencies may argue for their policies. The question GAO asks is whether a message is tied to an official function or exists only to help a candidate or party.

Critics say the new ads fail that test. Bob Bauer, White House counsel under President Obama, argued on his Substack on Sept. 28 that the hallway ad is so political it falls outside anything Congress authorized. He also noted that GAO’s decisions don’t bind the executive branch. Republicans have raised objections too. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sept. 27 that no public official should “spend public money on private ads for themselves.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wrote on X that the practice is legal only “in banana republics.”

There is no GAO ruling on these ads. We found no public record that anyone has formally asked GAO for one.

What’s next: The White House has not answered the appropriators’ request for an accounting. In the 2004 Medicare case, GAO also found a violation of the Antideficiency Act, and the agency had to report it to Congress and the president.

Sources

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