Trump won’t reimburse government for controversial ads

The White House clarified Tuesday that President Trump will not pay back the federal government for money already spent on controversial political TV ads after he said he would start paying for the ads himself.

Trump said Monday he would pay for the controversial “Patriotic Ads” himself after receiving backlash for using taxpayer money to fund them.

“The Radical Left is upset with the fact that I am taking Ads, which I consider to be a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A., and paying for them with U.S.A. money,” Trump wrote on Truth Social .

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“This is a rather standard thing to do but, rather than doing that, although nothing will make them happy, I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.,” the president added.

But a White House official confirmed to NewsNation, The Hill’s sister network, that Trump does not plan to reimburse the money already spent, saying, “The President’s Truth was not referring to reimbursement.”

The ads were part of a $20 million campaign and feature Trump’s voice saying the country will defeat socialism and communism.

Democrats and some Republicans quickly criticized the ads.

The White House defended them, saying they weren’t political.

“The president is not on the ballot, and the ads don’t have a call to action,” a White House official said.

Vice President Vance defended the ads too, saying there’s precedent for the federal government to use taxpayer money to promote government actions, pointing to Obama-era ads for the Affordable Care Act.

“It’s part of, actually, I think, living in a constitutional republic,” Vance told reporters Monday. “You have to be honest with the American people about what you’re doing, about what’s going on.”

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) head Brendan Carr said there was nothing in the ads that “strikes me as out of the ordinary or that would merit any sort of FCC review.”