President Donald Trump announced on Monday that his super PAC, MAGA Inc., will finance a controversial television advertising campaign after intense bipartisan opposition to the use of public funds, as reported by The Sydney Morning Herald. The reversal follows weeks of scrutiny over primetime commercials featuring the president and his agenda with disclosures stating they were paid for by the U.S. government.
The taxpayer-financed rollout had drawn sharp condemnation from Democratic lawmakers, ethics watchdogs, and several prominent Republicans ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. While Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials initially defended the commercials as traditional public service announcements, the president abruptly changed course on social media, stating he would instead finance the ads himself and through his political action committee.
A White House official subsequently confirmed to Yahoo News that MAGA Inc. would shoulder the costs moving forward.
Trump Shifts Campaign Ad Costs To MAGA Inc.
The promotional spots began airing during top time slots on national and local television, including during NFL broadcasts, and have cost at least $1.4 million according to estimates from the advertising tracking firm AdImpact (CBC News).
The expenditures reportedly drew from U.S. Customs and Border Protection funds within the Department of Homeland Security, which Democratic Senators Patty Murray and Chris Murphy identified as a $20 million allocation originally intended for commemorative border security events (Newsweek, CBC News).
The commercials themselves featured prominent figures such as mixed-martial arts executive Dana White, who praised Trump in a voice-over drawn from his 2024 Republican National Convention introduction (CBC News). Another ad mirrored a 2024 campaign spot in which Trump promised to demolish the deep state and expel warmongers (The Sydney Morning Herald, CBC News). Throughout the rollout, the White House maintained that the spots were exempt from campaign rules because Trump is not personally on the ballot for the midterms and the spots contained no direct call to action (The Sydney Morning Herald, CBC News).
Lawmakers Criticize Use of Public Funds for Ads
Despite the administration’s insistence that the messaging fell within historical precedent—pointing to past public-awareness campaigns under various administrations—lawmakers from both sides of the aisle criticized the spending. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that while he liked the message, public funds should not be used for such ads (CBC News).
Republican Senators John Cornyn, John Kennedy, and Thom Tillis similarly voiced opposition.
Democratic leaders were even harsher. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer characterized the broadcasts on the Senate floor as pure propaganda,
while a group of House Democrats wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles comparing the spots to government messaging expected in North Korea (The Sydney Morning Herald, CBC News).
Ethics watchdogs and former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter also warned that the expenditure potentially violated federal laws governing publicity and propaganda, with Painter suggesting it could constitute an impeachable offense (The Sydney Morning Herald, CBC News).
A Reuters/Ipsos survey indicated that 86% of Americans—including four out of five self-identified Republicans—disapproved of using tax dollars for campaign-style advertisements (Yahoo News).
Republican Senators John Cornyn, John Kennedy, and Thom Tillis similarly voiced opposition, with Kennedy declaring on CBS News that no public official should spend public money on private self-promotion
(The Sydney Morning Herald, Newsweek).