TALL TALES

Trump Splashes National Security Cash on Propaganda Ads

Taxpayer dollars are funding a new government-sponsored ad.

Taxpayer dollars are now funding an ad touting the Trump administration’s unpopular war against Iran.

After seven months of the conflict that the president initially said would last a couple weeks, a movie trailer-like ad featuring speeches by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hit the air Wednesday.

“This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States armed forces,” Trump, 80, says in the ad, as aircraft are seen dropping bombs. His remarks are from the opening day of the war, in late February.

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Hegseth, 46, then praises Trump, saying he “reminded the world, as he has time and time again, being an American means something unbreakable.”

“If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation, and we will kill you,” he continues, as more bombs are dropped.

Hegseth then makes a wild claim about the Iranian conflict.

“We didn’t start this war,” he insists in the ad, released seven months after U.S. missile strikes killed 120 children and 26 teachers at an Iranian girls school, by one estimate.

“But under President Trump, we are finishing it,” Hegseth concludes.

As of late August, Trump had claimed 66 times that the war he has struggled to end had already been won.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the Pentagon about the cost of the ad and the source of the funds.

The advertisement appears to be one result of the $20 million in Department of Homeland Security funds the White House transferred, according to The Washington Sun.

Earlier this week, more than $1.7 million in taxpayer money was used to pay for the airing of a repurposed 2024 Trump campaign ad. The White House has laughably argued that the spots are not advertisements, but “presidential public service announcements.”

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That explanation was weak enough that even some Republicans grumbled about it.

“I like the message, but it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday.

Sen. Mike Rounds added, “It would not have been something that I would have done. And I know that the White House is not covered by the same guidance that we are, but it’s not something that I would have done.”

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Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie posted on X, “Don’t worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the President has been done before and is completely legal… in banana republics.”

Governments can fund certain ads, like for public health or military recruitment, but they must be nonpartisan.

It is illegal to use federal funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes,” or to make “purely partisan” ads that are “designed to aid a political party or candidates.”

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