Ad originated as 2024 Trump campaign spot, Raskin cites Hatch Act felony
Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican and a lawyer with degrees from both the University of Virginia and the University of Oxford, broke with his fellow Republican President Donald Trump on Sunday, telling CBS News that the White House’s expanded taxpayer-funded advertising campaign featuring Trump probably runs afoul of the law.
Appearing on “Face the Nation” with host Margaret Brennan, Kennedy was asked about a 30-second ad airing on the major broadcast and cable networks that features Trump and ends with on-screen text reading “Paid for by the US Government.” The White House has labeled the spots “public service announcements.”
“Our viewers are going to see a 30-second commercial on this program,” Brennan said. “It’s on all major networks — it’s on the cable networks as well. It prominently features President Trump, and there’s a voice praising him as ‘the toughest, most resilient person I ever met’. And at the end, it says ‘paid for by the US government’. Is that the best use of taxpayer money?”
“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,” Kennedy replied. “Now, the White House sees it differently. But … I think there ought to be a rule that you can’t — well, there probably is a rule — you can’t spend public money to promote yourself.”
Kennedy, a lawyer with degrees from both the University of Virginia and the University of Oxford, appeared to be tacitly acknowledging the legal argument advanced by Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democratic congressman and legal scholar. Raskin has said that any government employees who worked on the first pro-Trump ad — “or used government resources to make it” — may have committed a felony violation of the Hatch Act, a federal law that bars government workers from partisan campaign activities.
The first ad in the series is a 30-second highlight reel of Trump’s second presidency, punctuated by on-screen text advancing his political agenda and suggesting Democrats are communists, the Guardian reported.
According to Medium Buying, a company that buys airtime for Republican candidates, the Trump administration used additional taxpayer funds to broadcast another partisan ad featuring the president that aired nationwide on Saturday during the Ohio State–Illinois college football game on Fox. The ad aired again during “Fox News Sunday.”
That 30-second spot shows a black-and-white image of Trump staring into the camera as the soundtrack plays the closing riff of a campaign speech he gave dozens of times in 2023 and 2024. “This is the final battle,” Trump says in the ad. “With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state; we will expel the warmongers from our government; we will drive out the globalists; we will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists,” he continues, with cheers from a crowd. “We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all,” Trump can be heard saying.
The cheers indicate the audio was recorded during a campaign rally and at a time before Trump used his power as president to start a war with Iran that has left some supporters feeling betrayed, according to the Guardian. Trump’s language was clearly calculated to appeal to Christian supporters by echoing the biblical story of Jesus driving merchants and money changers from the temple in Jerusalem, the Guardian reported.
The newest ad is more overtly partisan than the first, and was originally produced for Trump’s 2024 election campaign. It was posted on his Truth Social account in 2023 and 2024 with a plea for funds from supporters, and was played on giant screens at the 2024 Republican National Convention before Trump’s speech accepting his party’s nomination. When C-SPAN broadcast the ad at the convention on July 18, 2024, it was identified as material “provided by the Republican National Committee.”
Brennan reminded Kennedy that in March he had rebuked then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for spending millions in government funds “to bolster her public image” in a $220 million series of ads she starred in. Kennedy called Noem’s spending “masterclass dumb.”
“Well, first, as to secretary Noem, what she did was masterclass dumb,” Kennedy said. “She spent $220[m] on commercials about her, and I called her out on it.”
At the close of the interview, Kennedy volunteered that he also opposed Trump’s drive to put his own name on public buildings.
“I also think that we ought to have a rule that no politician can have a building named after him while he’s alive,” Kennedy said, adding that Louisiana already has such a statute.
“Well, we’ll watch, Senator, if you introduce that,” Brennan replied, reminding the lawmaker that making statements on Sunday morning television shows is not the same as using his office to introduce legislation that could restrain the president.