--- title: "Trump Airs Taxpayer-Funded Strongman Video on NFL Broadcasts Five Weeks Before the Midterms" description: "A 30-second spot starring the president carries the tagline ‘Paid for by the U.S. Government’ — prompting complaints, a Republican rebuke, and comparisons to North Korean propaganda" author: "Arthur Wren" published: 2026-09-28T04:01:29.137Z modified: 2026-09-28T14:20:44Z url: https://rews.cc/a/trump-airs-taxpayer-funded-strongman-video-on-nfl-broadcasts-41925f language: en tags: ["trump", "politics", "economy", "security", "deep-state", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Trump Airs Taxpayer-Funded Strongman Video on NFL Broadcasts Five Weeks Before the Midterms *A 30-second spot starring the president carries the tagline ‘Paid for by the U.S. Government’ — prompting complaints, a Republican rebuke, and comparisons to North Korean propaganda* By Arthur Wren · September 28, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/trump-airs-taxpayer-funded-strongman-video-on-nfl-broadcasts-41925f ## In brief - A 30-second black-and-white video starring Donald Trump aired during NFL games on Sunday - The spot vows a “final battle” against communists, the deep state and “fake news” media - The White House calls it a public service announcement that is educational and patriotic - The midterm elections are five weeks away and Republicans fear losing both chambers - Four senior Democratic appropriators demanded withdrawal of a previous Trump video, warning the spending is unlawful The president of the United States has a new way to address his subjects. He buys time on their football broadcasts with their own money, and shows them himself. The video runs 30 seconds. It is in black and white. Donald Trump walks toward the camera without smiling while a voice track vows “a final battle” against communists, the deep state and “fake news” media. The spot aired during National Football League games on Sunday. At the end comes the line that makes it something new: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” The White House calls this a public service announcement. Its statement to CNN said the spots are “about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad,” and that “the ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country.” Public service announcements, as the phrase is normally understood, tell people to get vaccinated or wear seatbelts. This one tells them their country is besieged by Marxists and that the only answer is one unsmiling man. The real name for that is not education. The White House lists George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt as presidents who ran public service ads. Biden’s pandemic video urged vaccination; Roosevelt’s Office of War Information, formed in June 1942, promoted a war against attackers who had bombed Pearl Harbor. Neither case involved a president selling himself as the nation’s sole saviour five weeks before an election. The timing is the thing, as CNN’s Stephen Collinson points out. The midterm elections are five weeks away. Republicans fear losing both the House and the Senate. The White House argues that because Trump is not on the ballot, the videos are not political. The president himself told supporters at what he called his “midterm convention” in Texas to “pretend that I’m on the ballot.” A video promising a final battle against the president’s enemies is precisely the sort of message aimed at turning out his most loyal voters in a race where his name is formally absent. There is also the question of who pays. Trump has a campaign war chest worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He does not need the Treasury’s money to make videos about himself. Yet the Treasury’s money is being used, which means the money of every American taxpayer, including those he describes in the video as fake-news enemies of the people. Four senior Democratic appropriators wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles last week demanding withdrawal of a previous Trump video and warning that spending public money this way is unlawful. The letter, signed by Senator Patty Murray of Washington, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, called it “the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America.” They cited Section 718 of Division E of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026, which forbids federal funds from supporting propaganda, and raised problems under the Hatch Act as well. The consumer group Public Citizen has filed complaints with the Government Accountability Office and the Office of Special Counsel over two earlier Trump videos, calling them an “affront to taxpayers and our democracy.” And this time the objection is not confined to the usual opponents. Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that no public official should spend public money on “private ads for themselves.” The administration is not inclined to be shamed. Its communications director, Steven Cheung, posted on X: “don’t let the Fake News get away with their lies about our epic Public Service Announcements that have been running on tv.” This is a government that has already purged inspectors general, ethics officials and career civil servants, so complaints addressed to its conscience may meet an empty chair. According to CNN, the episode also echoes a likely misuse of tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a campaign promoting former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shortly before she left office, based on invoices the network has seen. There is a familiar method at work here. The video is a provocation; the howls of protest are part of the product, feeding the story that the president is besieged by a sinister establishment and only his strong hand can save the country. It also lands at a moment when the administration is at odds with the First Amendment. Legal decisions are pending on its cancellation of permanent press passes for three media organisations, after a judge temporarily suspended the ban, and on its removal of CNN from a weekend pool rotation. Whether anything restrains this is doubtful. If Democrats take either chamber in November, the ads will likely be pulled into oversight investigations, as Collinson notes. But the lesson of this era is that a president who decides the old rules do not bind him is hard to stop with letters and precedent. The precedent now being written runs the other way: that a White House may use the public purse to glorify the person holding it. Future presidents, including ones with better manners, will remember that this door is open.