Trump put a campaign ad on Fox News this week and sent taxpayers the bill.
Trump's government aired the 30-second spot Wednesday night on Fox News and Newsmax, in the Jesse Watters hour and in the Los Angeles and Chicago markets, with a line across the bottom no political ad has carried before: "Paid for by the U.S. government." AdImpact, which tracks media buys, put the spend at just over $14,000 so far, on cable and on streaming.
The ad itself is a rally reel. Trump's voice runs over a supercut of Trump photos and Trump video. "Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism," he says. "America will never be a communist country." On screen, the slogans scroll: "largest tax cuts in history," "reigniting American manufacturing," "defend law and order and police." UFC boss Dana White closes it, praising Trump over a soundtrack of women singing "love me" on a loop. Jim DeFede, the CBS Miami reporter who spotted it first, called it "clearly a campaign ad."
Trump's party convention wrapped in Dallas earlier this month. Trump's ad repeats those lines word for word, six weeks before the midterms.
Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who would run the House Judiciary Committee if his party takes the House, said the spot could amount to "felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes." He called it "blatantly unethical" and a Hatch Act violation for every federal employee who worked on it.
