One of the most debated events of the last week were a series of controversial Trump ads, paid by taxpayer funds out of Homeland Security, over the weekend.
The Trump Administration has pushed back against bipartisan criticism of the commercials, citing public service ads run during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. I look at these ads, as well as Trump’s ads run through the DHS budget to examine the charges and counter-charges.
There’s a lot of pushback from both parties on these controversial ads. “The political uproar over Trump’s hagiographic ads, which started running last week during popular TV shows, including college and National Football League programming, has not abated as critics on the left and right raise alarms about the use of taxpayer funds, particularly so close to the midterm elections,” PBS reports. “The unusual commercials, which echo the GOP’s midterm election slogans, against imagery of Trump’s tenure in office — one with a “Love me, Love me” song refrain in the background — appear to violate a law against congressionally appropriated funds being used for propaganda. Experts also have said the ads, which are airing on network and cable TV and streaming, differ from other administrations’ PSAs because they aren’t designed to help Americans access any specific program.”
So far, nearly $3 million in taxpayer funds were taken from the Department of Homeland Security for these “Love Me” ads, with another $17 million in taxpayer money set aside, not for fighting terrorism or illegal immigration, but for more ads, though Trump’s MAGA fundraising machine is sitting on millions of dollars.
PBS adds “Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, compared Trump’s ads to those used by authoritarian former leader Viktor Orban of Hungary. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, said it ‘shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.’”
It’s interesting to note details in the ads. According to the Wall Street Journal, the controversial government Trump ad claims “Together we will defeat communism, socialism and Marxism in America.” At the same time it ran, Trump rolled out the red carpet for Chinese Community Party dictator Xi Jinping, cutting a deal to lower tariffs on some Chinese goods, according to Fox.
And the Trump Administration has welcomed former KGB Agent and member of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party Vladimir Putin to the G20 Meeting in December in Miami, according to Politico.
This looks like embracing communist and Marxist leaders instead of defeating them.
Another such Trump ad, nearly identical to his 2024 campaign ad, vows to “expel the warmongers from our government.” I didn’t realize that Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and others will be ousted. Didn’t this government rename the Defense Department the War Department?
The Trump Administration insists that their ad is no different from PSAs by George W. Bush for Medicare’s Prescription Drug Bill, Barack Obama for the Affordable Care Act, and Joe Biden for getting COVID-19 Vaccines. I have researched each of these and found that none of these presidents did not appear in any of these ads, nor had their names mentioned (see the links for each PSA). Each promoted a program, and did not ask the audience to “Love Me.”
But there was a GOP Senator who criticized ads for the Affordable Care Act, even though the ads didn’t even mention Obama. “This blatant misuse of federal dollars to promote a fundamentally flawed law is extremely concerning, especially considering the extensive unknowns surrounding the coming launch and implementation of Obamacare,” he argued, even though it was Republicans who called it Obamacare, not the government.
Which senator complained? It was then-Florida-Senator Marco Rubio.
John A. Tures is Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Political Science Program at LaGrange College, in LaGrange, Georgia. His first book, “Branded”, is available on Amazon. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu.