The Trump administration is broadcasting what it calls "public service announcements" on major networks and cable channels — ads that prominently feature Donald Trump, use audio from campaign rallies, and recycle footage originally produced for his 2024 presidential campaign. One ad was posted on Truth Social with fundraising appeals in 2023 and 2024 and played at the Republican National Convention before Trump's nomination acceptance speech. It now airs with the tagline "Paid for by the US Government." Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a Republican with law degrees from the University of Virginia and Oxford, told CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday that "there probably is a rule" against spending public money on self-promotion — a tacit acknowledgment that the ads may violate the Hatch Act, which bars government employees from partisan campaign activities. Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin has argued explicitly that government employees who worked on the ads or used government resources to produce them may have committed a felony. Kennedy's critique came with a pointed double standard already on the record. In March, he publicly rebuked then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for spending $220 million in government funds on an advertising campaign that prominently featured her. He called it "masterclass dumb." When CBS host Margaret Brennan put the new Trump ads beside the Noem precedent, Kennedy stated the principle — no public official should spend public money on private ads — but offered no legislative remedy. The ad content is unambiguously partisan. The newest spot shows Trump in black-and-white staring into the camera while audio from a campaign rally plays: "We will demolish the deep state; we will expel the warmongers; we will drive out the globalists; we will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists." The crowd cheers audible in the recording indicate it was captured before Trump started a war with Iran that alienated some supporters. The language deliberately echoes the biblical story of Jesus driving merchants from the temple — a pitch to Christian voters. According to Medium Buying, a company that buys airtime for Republican candidates, taxpayer funds were used to broadcast the ad during a college football game between Ohio State and Illinois on Fox and again during Fox News Sunday. The first ad in the series was a 30-second highlight reel of Trump's second presidency with on-screen text driving his political agenda and suggesting Democrats are communists. The pattern is structurally familiar: public resources converted into partisan infrastructure, with critics on both sides acknowledging the problem but no one with power moving to stop it. Kennedy volunteered that he also opposes Trump's drive to put his name on public buildings, noting Louisiana has a statute prohibiting naming buildings after living politicians. Brennan's response was surgical: "We'll watch, Senator, if you introduce that" — a reminder that stating principles on Sunday television is not the same as using legislative power to enforce them. What makes this case distinctive is the paper trail. The ad's provenance is documented: Truth Social posts with fundraising links, C-SPAN footage from the RNC where it was identified as Republican National Committee material, and now the same footage labeled as a government-funded public service announcement. The question is not whether the line between campaign material and government communication has been crossed — it's whether anyone with authority will act on it.
