Trump’s ads have cost taxpayers at least $2.5 million, with funding from Customs and Border Protection

By Kristen Holmes, Alayna Treene, Betsy Klein, Brian Stelter, CNN

(CNN) — Millions of taxpayer dollars have already been spent on President Donald Trump’s hagiographic ads, according to estimates by a leading political ad-tracking firm. And a total of $20 million has been allocated for the effort, which watchdog groups have deemed illegal.

The TV airtime for the three different Trump ads has cost at least $2.5 million to date, the ad-tracking firm AdImpact told CNN.

The actual cost of the taxpayer-funded ad campaign is even higher, but can’t be fully ascertained.

The money for these ads is coming from Customs and Border Protection, or CBP for short, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Earlier this month, the White House Office of Management and Budget, led by Russell Vought, allocated $20 million to CBP for what it called “OBBBA commemorative events.” (OBBBA is an abbreviation for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed into law in 2025.)

Shortly after the $20 million was allocated, CBP contracted an advertising company, LMD Agency Inc., for a national media campaign in the same dollar amount. Days later, the ads began to appear on national television, two additional sources told CNN. LMD’s parent company, MarCom Group, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

CBP is an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Patty Murray and Chris Murphy, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin accusing the department of “a shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

The propagandistic ads also faced a fresh challenge from the government watchdog group Public Citizen on Tuesday.

The ads “appear to violate the federal law against using taxpayer funds to finance propaganda and related provisions of the appropriations laws as well as the Hatch Act,” Public Citizen co-presidents Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert and the group’s lobbyist, Craig Holman, wrote in a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

It’s unclear whether any outside groups have the legal standing to sue the Trump administration over the ads.

And while lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have questioned their legality, Republicans — who currently control both the House and the Senate — have not acted.

Following the taxpayer money

AdImpact’s analysis for CNN found 2,766 total ad airings between September 23 and 29. The ads have aired on Fox News and the big four broadcast networks.

About 30% of the ad spend has been dedicated to NFL and college football games, according to the firm’s research.

The ads have also appeared during shows like ABC’s “The View,” CBS’s “Elsbeth” and NBC’s “The Weakest Link.”

Because the spots have been classified as a “public service announcement” rather than a traditional political ad buy, the exact spending is not publicly disclosed or verifiable. AdImpact’s estimates are based on air dates, times, local markets, and other factors.

The firm said the first Trump ad to air, featuring the song “Love Me” by JMSN, has aired on more than 1,300 occasions so far.

Lawyers for JMSN sent a cease-and-desist letter to the White House earlier this week, demanding that the administration no longer use the song.

The text “Paid for by the US Government” is seen on screen at the end of each of the three ads, including one repurposed version of an ad from Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

The “paid for” disclosure conflicts with the administration’s insistence that the ads are “public service announcements” akin to those that past administrations have aired about Medicare, Obamacare and Covid-19 vaccinations.

For actual public service announcements, the TV airtime is usually donated.

Public Citizen argued in its FCC and FTC complaint that the Trump ads “do not refer to any specific governmental program and they do not serve the purpose of informing the public about any specific governmental program.”

The ads were created in-house by the White House video team, two Trump advisers told CNN, and were personally driven by the president, who was involved in the selection of imagery and videos used, according to a separate source.

The Wall Street Journal first reported where the money came from.

Who will enforce the rules?

On Tuesday, Public Citizen warned that TV stations could theoretically lose their broadcast licenses for knowingly airing the ads.

“A station knowingly broadcasting illegal, taxpayer-funded partisan propaganda has failed its public interest mandate, forming the basis of a formal license renewal challenge,” they wrote.

The track record of Trump’s FCC, however, shows the agency won’t try to penalize a station for running pro-Trump content. Instead, the agency has challenged ABC’s licenses, a move that many observers have linked to the network’s support for programs like “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” that are harshly critical of the president.

Public Citizen also filed a separate complaint Monday with the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan agency typically tasked with investigating this type of issue, as well as the US Office of the Special Counsel, calling for an investigation “into who produced these ads and at what cost to taxpayers.”

What constitutes illegal government propaganda, and who can be held accountable for it, is less straightforward.

Propaganda hasn’t been defined in US law, but the Government Accountability Office has identified three categories, including “self-aggrandizement” or “puffery.”

“The most immediate check on this kind of behavior is supposed to be and needs to be Congress. Congress has not asserted itself as the first branch of government with the power of the purse to hold the president accountable,” said Donald Sherman, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, or CREW.

GOP lawmakers may be hesitant to provide accountability, he added, because the ads “are designed to boost Republicans in Congress.”

And Hatch Act violations — government officials engaging in partisan political activity while on duty — have largely been dismissed in recent years. Trump administration officials in his first term were alleged to have repeatedly violated the Hatch Act with no penalty. The same was alleged during the Biden administration.

Public Citizen said in a previous statement that it has filed dozens of complaints with the administration about Hatch Act violations, but thinks they have been ignored.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.