The taxpayer-funded television commercials that President Donald Trump is running on channels across the United States draw their money from the large sums Congress appropriated to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the 2025 "One, Big Beautiful Bill Act," according to a report published Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal traced the funds to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "The taxpayer money used to fund the ads that started airing last week came from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an arm of DHS that oversees the Border Patrol and customs and immigration at airports," the Journal reported.

The report noted that it is not unusual for U.S. Customs to air television and radio spots discouraging foreigners from coming to the U.S. or telling undocumented immigrants to self-deport. The new ads, however, are being attacked as outright "campaign ads." Former ethics czar Norm Eisen said on Bluesky that Trump "recycled" one of his 2024 campaign commercials for the publicly financed spots. The Journal found that ad was "almost identical" to a video Trump posted on Truth Social in 2024, using the same sentences and wording.

The funding trail is central to the dispute: the spots are financed with homeland security dollars appropriated by Congress rather than campaign funds, and the core objection from critics is that the ads amount to political campaigning paid for with taxpayer money.

A CNN report aired Monday night revealed that Trump "personally" helped create the ads from the government accounts.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland is already asking for an investigation.

The White House defended the spots in a statement: "These public-service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad. The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country." Homeland Security refused to comment.

By Sunday evening, the ads had aired nearly 90 times across national television networks — including Fox, Newsmax, MS Now and CBS — at an estimated cost of $337,000, according to ad-tracking firm iSpot.TV. The commercials have also run extensively on local television stations, logging 2,311 airings, with an estimated $1.4 million behind them, according to a modeled estimate from political ad-tracking firm AdImpact, the Journal reported. Taken together, the two trackers' estimates put spending at more than $1.7 million since the spots first began airing.

The government watchdog group Public Citizen has filed a lawsuit seeking to pull the ads off the air. Another group, Democracy Forward, which has previously sued Trump over other matters, submitted a public records request related to the commercials. The organization's director, Skye Perryman, said the ads raise larger questions about whether the administration is using public funds as a "personal political war chest." Those steps frame the immediate stakes: whether the spots stay on the air, and whether the use of appropriated homeland security funds draws formal congressional scrutiny.

It is not the first time DHS has come under fire for running commercials. Former Secretary Kristi Noem appeared in ads in various costumes to talk about the work she was doing, and a company connected to Noem was paid $200 million for that ad campaign, as ProPublica has reported. Noem later testified to Congress that Trump approved the money — something Trump said did not happen.

Source: Alternet