Super Pac refused to reimburse taxpayers after Trump said it would pay
The Democratic National Committee filed its complaint in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, asking a judge to block President Donald Trump from airing taxpayer-funded self-promotion advertisements. The suit alleges that “President Trump personally directed this illegal activity. The White House office crafted the partisan campaign. The office of management and budget shifted $20m to pay for it. And US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has carried it out. These unlawful actions are ultra vires and violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA),” the complaint states.
The suit alleges the ads violate a federal prohibition on congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and a separate bar on taxpayer funds being used for “self-aggrandizement.” Ken Martin, the DNC chair, said in a statement that Trump was misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November. Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes.”
According to the media tracking firm AdImpact, the ads have cost taxpayers more than $12 million so far. One ad in the series, recycled from Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, is among those that have been broadcast.
The lawsuit follows a sequence of conflicting statements from the White House. After bipartisan criticism of the ad campaign, Trump said Monday he would direct the Maga Inc Super Pac, which he controls, to pay for the ads. The next day, the White House said the political action committee would not reimburse taxpayers for the money it had already spent on the ads. Then, when the government unveiled a fifth ad in the series celebrating Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela, it was also paid for by the US government.
The complaint cites recent Reuters/Ipsos polling released Tuesday that found 86% of Americans called it inappropriate to use taxpayer funds for TV ads featuring the president around an election. The survey reported that 80% of Republicans called the ads inappropriate, with only 17% of the president’s party approving.
According to the suit, the ads have aired on ABC, NBC, MS Now, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and Newsmax, and appeared during NFL and college football games, and news and entertainment shows including Meet the Press, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and Saturday Night Live.
The suit also notes the first ad in the series features an image of FIFA president Gianni Infantino awarding Trump the so-called “FIFA peace prize,” which the DNC cites to support its case that the ads violate a prohibition on the use of taxpayer funds for “self-aggrandizement.”
The federal lawsuit includes details of another eight ads prepared for broadcast that were found “in a Dropbox account controlled by LMD Agency Inc, the government contractor bringing the ads to air.” Among the ready-to-air ads is one that celebrates the UFC fights staged at the White House on Trump’s birthday in June, and another titled “God Made Trump,” a fan-created hymn of praise to Trump that was shown during the Republican midterm convention.
A third ad, titled “Resilience,” includes images of Trump announcing his candidacy for the presidency in 2015, then being charged in Fulton county, Georgia, in 2023 for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and video of the assassination attempt on him during the 2024 election campaign. A fourth, titled “King of the Jungle,” shows a lion hunting in the wild and disparages Trump’s political enemies, including former president Barack Obama. In February, Trump shared a racist video on social media that portrayed him as a lion and Obama and his wife Michelle as apes.
According to CNN, which gained access to the Dropbox last week, another ad in the series features attacks on Joe Biden, including a mocking image of the former president as an auto-pen installed by Trump on an exterior wall of the White House.