The Trump administration is airing campaign-style television ads using money Congress approved for border security upgrades, efforts to combat drug trafficking and memorials for officers killed in the line of duty, according to federal spending records.
Democrats say the ads break multiple federal laws by using taxpayer money for political purposes that Congress never authorized. The White House defends the ads as public service announcements.
One of the spots closely resembles a 30-second video produced by the Trump campaign in 2024. The latest ad features President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth advocating for the Iran war. They feature disclosures saying they are “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
On Sept. 19, a few days before the ads began airing, the White House Office of Management and Budget added $20 million to a Department of Homeland Security budget line designated for “commemorative events,” according to publicly disclosed OMB data. Congress approved the spending for those events in Trump’s 2025 domestic spending package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, and intended it for “Line-of-Duty death memorials, Department or agency anniversaries, and commendation ceremonies,” according to a House budget committee report.
The next day, Sept. 20, DHS awarded a $20 million contract for a “national media campaign” to the LMD Agency, a Maryland-based public relations and media firm that had previously worked for the department. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
DHS and OMB had originally planned to spend only $1 million on “commemorative events,” according to OMB records. To add $20 million to that budget line, OMB drew on almost $6.7 billion that the law allocated to Customs and Border Protection. The law specified seven other uses for the money: new inspection equipment for ports of entry; air and marine response capabilities; border surveillance upgrades; biometric technology; screening people crossing the border; screening unaccompanied children; and enhanced border security targeting drug trafficking.
“In order to use this fund for anything, you have to point to one of the eight things in this list and say, ‘I’m doing that because Congress has said you have this money for one of these things,’” said Cerin Lindgrensavage, a lawyer with Protect Democracy, an advocacy group that frequently sues the Trump administration. “The problem is this discrepancy between what ‘commemorative events’ meant when the House was sitting down and putting the full language together and passing it, which was memorials and commendation ceremonies and such, and what these ads actually are.”
She added: “From our perspective, to the extent these ads are propaganda, there really isn’t funding that has a permissible purpose that would include their use.”
A White House spokesperson, who declined to be identified, described the ads as educational and patriotic and referred questions to OMB and DHS. A DHS spokesperson said the agency makes contracting decisions in accordance with applicable laws.
Since the 1950s, congressional appropriations have routinely prohibited using federal funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” The Government Accountability Office has interpreted those restrictions to cover, among other things, communications that are “purely partisan” and “designed to aid a political party or candidates.”
“Using government funding to create or air political ads like the ones that have been running over the last few days is illegal and a shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars,” Sens. Patty Murray (D-Washington) and Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) said in a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “… This administration’s defense of using Americans’ tax dollars to air these ads is as absurd as it is offensive.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the ads could also violate the Hatch Act’s bar against using official authority to influence elections, the Antideficiency Act’s prohibition against spending federal money without congressional authorization, and criminal statutes against embezzling or stealing public funds.
“Stealing taxpayer dollars to pay for Mr. Trump’s narcissistic ego trips is plainly illegal,” Raskin and Rep. George Whitesides (D-California) said in a letter Wednesday requesting a GAO investigation.
The White House has indicated the ads will not stop and will instead expand. Officials argue the ads aren’t political because they don’t explicitly tell people to vote or take any other action and Trump is not on the ballot. Trump has repeatedly told his supporters to vote as if he were.
The White House pointed to government-funded education campaigns under previous administrations, one of which the GAO found did violate the anti-propaganda law. There is no precedent for using government money to air political ads in an election season.
The backlash includes a cease-and-desist letter from Christian Berishaj, the artist known as JMSN, whose song “Love Me” was featured in one of the ads without his permission. Lawyers for the artist said the ad infringed on his copyright and falsely suggested he is affiliated with the administration.
Super PACs led by Trump advisers have spent more than $185.8 million on ads for the midterms, according to AdImpact data. The flagship super PAC, MAGA Inc., had $415.8 million as of Aug. 31, according to the Federal Election Commission, and Trump claimed to have about as much in an allied nonprofit group.
The post Campaign-style Trump ads use money meant for border security, memorials appeared first on Washington Post.
