Lummis blocks Senate resolution criticizing Trump’s taxpayer-funded TV ads

U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming blocked a bipartisan-backed resolution Tuesday denouncing President Donald Trump for using tax dollars to pay for campaign-style television ads. 

The series of ads, which began airing last week, have drawn fierce criticism by Democratic lawmakers as well as some GOP members, who say they break federal law. The White House, meanwhile, has defended the advertisements, including one that’s largely repurposed from Trump’s 2024 campaign. 

With three months left in office, Lummis, who is not running for reelection, stood in support of the ads Tuesday on the Senate floor when she objected to a resolution brought by New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat. 

Hassan tried to pass a resolution by unanimous consent that stated it is the “sense of the Senate” that the campaign-style ads promoting Trump should not be funded by taxpayers. 

“The American people want their tax dollars to go towards helping them and keeping them safe, not propaganda campaigns for a president,” Hassan said. “He’s welcome to run whatever ads he wants with his own riches. But with taxpayer dollars, money that people have worked hard to earn, he needs to follow the law.” 

Lummis objected, asserting that past administrations of both parties “have used public service announcements to speak directly to the American people for decades.” 

“When a Democratic president tells Americans what to do, it’s a public service,” Lummis said. “When this president tells Americans that liberty is worth defending, it’s suddenly a problem.” 

Hassan pushed back, arguing that “people know the difference between a PSA and a political ad.” 

Democrats haven’t been the only critics of the ads. U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, told CBS News: “You can’t spend public money to promote yourself.”

The initial advertisement, which began airing last Wednesday, features clips of Trump talking about defeating communism interspersed with onscreen text promoting the “largest tax cuts in history,” “reigniting American manufacturing” and a call to “defend law and order and police.”

Later in the week, a second ad began running, showing scenic videos of Mount Rushmore at night with quotes and clips from Trump’s Fourth of July weekend speech there honoring the country’s 250th anniversary. 

The latest of the ads, a spot first aired over the weekend, is virtually identical to an ad for Trump’s Republican reelection campaign in 2024. It shows him walking down a hallway as his voice can be heard warning of a “final battle” against “globalists” and “warmongers.” 

All three ads end with a message that says: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” 

According to AdImpact, which tracks media spending, the spots have so far cost more than $1.4 million and run across a wide range of TV networks around the country. The actual amount spent could be significantly more, depending on whether networks classified the ad as a political ad. 

Multiple legal experts consulted by The Associated Press said the ads appear to run afoul of federal statutes, including a law against congressionally appropriated funds being used for “publicity or propaganda” and a law that limits the partisan political activities of government employees. 

They said the new ads, which are airing on network and cable TV and streaming, differ from other administrations’ PSAs because they aren’t designed to help Americans access any specific program. 

In defending the campaign, the White House published a list of PSAs from recent Democratic and Republican administrations. 

Among the examples it cited were Bush’s Republican administration touting a Medicare law, Barack Obama’s Democratic administration promoting Affordable Care Act subsidies and Joe Biden’s Democratic administration running ads promoting COVID-19 vaccinations. 

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Steven Sloan contributed to this report.