Football viewers who saw the Trump ad's tag this weekend did not need a liberal-media lecture. The line on the screen was enough: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
President Trump shouldn’t be putting recycled campaign ads on the air paid for by the taxpayers. The spot that aired this weekend is the same core video from a 2024 Trump campaign ad.
That is the record. Morning Joe and CNN This Morning treated it with their usual paranoia as a border crossing into dictatorship.
Joe Scarborough saw the tag and found Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin.
“When I saw, at the end of that ad, paid for the U.S. government, that was such an Orban, Putin move.”
Scarborough couldn't resist descending into his trademark hyperbole: “This is socialism! This is communism!" It's a little bizarre to proclaim it's "communist" to air an ad saying we will defeat the communists.
Over on CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish at least cited presidential precedents: George W. Bush selling a Medicare plan, Obama pushing Obamacare, and Biden spending hundreds of millions promoting a COVID vaccine.
Morning Shows See a Taxpayer-Paid Trump Ad and Reach for Kim, Khamenei and 'Communism' pic.twitter.com/Hx014dvqCH
— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) September 28, 2026
But Yasmin Radjy of "Swing Left" wouldn't agree that the precedents put Trump in the clear:
"No, I think this is pretty black and white. This is state-sponsored propaganda at its finest. This is, I think we're, in a race to the bottom with, North Korea and Iran, with the kind of propaganda that we're seeing here."
Comparing Trump to Kim Jong Un? Until the Republicans cut off their funding, as our Tim Graham has observed, most of our government-funded campaign advertising for the Democrats ran as badly-disguised news on PBS and NPR.
The U.S. government shouldn't be paying for a recycled campaign spot. But Trump's DC is not Pyongyang. It is not Tehran. It is not the Politburo.
It is a president trolling the liberal media, daring them to lose their minds. Today, Morning Joe and at least one CNN commentator obliged.
Here are the transcripts.
MS NOW
Morning Joe
9/28/26
6:00 am EDT
DONALD TRUMP [in TV ad]: This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state, we will expel the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country, we will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: But I, I think there ought to be a rule that you can't, well, there probably is a rule, you can't spend public money to, to promote yourself.
I'm gonna, I, I may end up with a sombrero on my head, but I also think that we ought to have a rule that no politician, can have a building named after him while he's alive. I think that would settle a lot of this controversy. We have that rule in Louisiana, and it works pretty well.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, it, it should work pretty well.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: What was that ad, or whatever you call it?
SCARBOROUGH: I, I, I've got to say, there's very, there are very few things that, that this far in, this, this thing that we're going through, with Donald Trump, very few things, like, surprise me.
When I saw, at the end of that ad, "Paid for by the U.S. Government," that was such an Orban, Putin move.
. . .
This is socialism, by the way! This is communism! Right?
A centralized state taking over companies, taking over corporations, running ads, strongman ads on TV, seizing money from taxpayers, your constituents.
Come on. You don't understand how bad this is for the Republican Party? You gonna keep quiet about this? Because this is bad. It's bad for America. But if you don't care about that, and there's a lot of evidence right now that you don't, it's not only bad for America, it's really bad for the Republican Party. You need to make him stop. And if you can't make him stop, well, good luck in November.
CNN This Morning
9/28/26
6:04 am EDT
AUDIE CORNISH: Look, we saw the George W. Bush administration spend money promoting a Medicare plan. President Obama spent money on the Affordable Care Act PSAs. And of course, Biden spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a COVID vaccine PSA campaign. Yasmin, does that put him in the clear?
YASMIN RADJY: No, I think this is pretty black and white. This is state-sponsored propaganda at its finest. This is, I think we're, in a race to the bottom with, North Korea and Iran, with the kind of propaganda that we're seeing here.
