President Donald Trump personally signed off on a series of gruesome anti-drug s featuring the ghosts of fentanyl victims.
After the 2024 election, Trump, who is a cable news junkie, told his team he wanted to develop graphic ads combating the fentanyl crisis.
Instead of soft public service announcements, he wanted spots that would “stand out” with cable viewers, sources told Axios.
As a result, two spots from the Trump-aligned group Make America Fentanyl Free show addicts’ teeth rotting, organs failing and skin turning blue, until they eventually fade into ghosts warning the viewer not to do drugs.
“Don’t take fentanyl. Because if you do, you’ll be dead—like me,” says one drug user as he dissolves into nothingness.
In another ad, a woman announces she was having the “best birthday party ever”—until it turned out to be her last, because her marijuana was laced with fentanyl.
“Just one mistake and you’re out of the game—forever,” warns a spectral basketball player.
“I was immediately addicted to fentanyl, exactly like the drug dealers wanted,” says another user, who explains how his body broke down before he eventually died alone.
Both ads end with a voiceover saying, “Join President Trump’s fight to end the fentanyl crisis.”
The ads have been viewed millions of times on YouTube since they were posted 11 days ago.
Make American Fentanyl Free has also spent more than $2.6 million to run on the ads on cable outlets in areas hit hard by the fentanyl epidemic, including West Virginia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, Michigan, and Washington, D.C., Axios reported.
Trump screened final versions of the ads earlier this month and personally approved them, sources told the outlet.
“The president cares very deeply about this issue, and his fight against fentanyl was the galvanizing force in the formation of the organization,” said Danielle Alvarez, a former Trump adviser and a spokesperson for Make America Fentanyl Free.
“He’s offered great advice, including the use of vivid imagery to show Americans exactly how fentanyl destroys lives, families and communities,” she added.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
It’s not clear who is funding Make America Fentanyl Free, a “dark money” non-profit whose donors are allowed to remain anonymous.
The president has been buoyed by a network of outside groups that have spent millions of dollars promoting his agenda, according to Axios.
Trump has invoked the fentanyl crisis to justify much of his policy agenda—from tariffs to deportations, from his federal crackdown of Washington, D.C., to his deadly strikes on Venezuelan boats—even as fatalities hit a five-year low this summer, NPR reported last month.
At the same time, the president’s “Big Beautiful” budget bill cut funding for health and addiction programs, threatening to undue much of the progress that has been made, according to NPR.
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