Trump says he will fund his promotional ads without taxpayer money

Lawmakers in both parties challenged the ads’ legality

President Donald Trump said Monday he will stop using US taxpayer funds to pay for television ads he has fronted, following bipartisan pushback over the spots. Trump said he has decided to pay for the “Patriotic Ads” himself and with money raised through his MAGA Inc super political action committee, calling the practice “a rather standard thing to do.”

“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,” Trump wrote Monday on social media.

The ads, which praise the president and his policies, have aired more than a dozen times over recent weeks, with some mentioning Trump’s tax cuts, US manufacturing and law and order. In them, Trump also vows to take action against the “deep state” and others he perceives as enemies. “We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all,” Trump says in one ad.

The spots drew criticism and questions over their legality because of laws against using government money for political ads. Legal experts say past US government advertisements have typically been about public health or national emergencies.

“It’s difficult to see what legitimate government purpose is served by spending taxpayer dollars on ads whose only apparent purpose is to promote the president,” Margaret Dylus-Yukins, a legal ethics expert, told the BBC.

The White House has pushed back against the criticism, calling the ads “educational” and saying they are not propaganda but rather public service announcements. The White House has pointed to previous administrations’ ads, including those under former President Barack Obama on his healthcare plan and one under former President Joe Biden urging people to get Covid-19 vaccines.

The criticism spanned both parties. Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire introduced a measure, blocked by a Republican, denouncing the administration for using government funds for the ads. “It is the sense of the Senate that the advertisements promoting President Donald Trump that aired in September 2026, which included the direct language ‘paid for by the U.S. Government,’ should not be paid for by the United States government,” the measure reads.

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday that while “I like the message … it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.” Senator John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, said on CBS News on Sunday that politicians should not spend taxpayer funds on promotional ads. “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 said.

The ads came just ahead of the November midterm elections, when Democrats hope to take control of one or both chambers of the US Congress as polls continue to show Trump’s approval rating falling. Midterm elections often serve as a verdict on how a president is doing, and typically the party of a sitting president tends to lose seats in Congress.